The Most Wonderful Time

by Fern Michaels

  More importantly, that he could wait for her to be ready for forever. That they could keep on dating and enjoying each other without the pressure of having to think about their future.

  Right now, with firelight dancing across her face, her eyes dark and filled with questions, he knew just how much of a fool he’d been.

  “You’re beautiful,” he murmured, his hand sliding up her shoulder and cupping her jaw.

  “So are you,” she responded, and if he hadn’t been so caught up in the need to taste her lips again, he would have laughed.

  “What I am,” he said, the scent of that flowery perfume surrounding him, the warmth of the fire only adding to the heat flowing through his blood, “is a fool. I never should have let you walk out of my life, Emma. I don’t even know why I did.”

  Then he did what he’d been wanting to for the past three days. He kissed her again. And he knew that once more would never be enough. He shifted his hold, pulled her into his lap, and she went, her arms twining around his neck, her fingers in his hair, all the years between them gone.

  Chapter Seven

  Emma didn’t want it to end.

  Ever.

  Not the heated kiss, the harsh gasp of their breaths mixing. His hands sliding down her back, settling at the curve of her spine, finding their way beneath her T-shirt, his palms rasping across her skin.

  She shuddered, edging closer, all the thoughts that had been haunting her for days—thoughts about the house, about letting it go, about heritage and family and all the things that she should have but didn’t—sliding into the heat of that kiss, fading into nothing but feeling and desire and want.

  She wove her fingers through Jack’s hair, reveling in the silky feel of it against her palms.

  God, she wanted this!

  She wanted him.

  She knew it was a mistake. She knew they’d end up parting ways again, but right at that moment she didn’t care. All she cared about was this moment.

  He pulled back, his breath harsh, his eyes blazing, and she thought that he was going to give her a choice to continue or to stop. Which sucked, because as soon as he backed away, cool air replaced the heat, and her brain started moving again, clicking along and putting things into perspective.

  The last thing she needed were memories that would leave her feeling like she’d missed out on something wonderful.

  “Not the right time,” Jack muttered, his forehead resting against hers. They were eye to eye, breath to breath, all that heat still between them, but there was something else there now—a gentleness as he cupped her cheeks, gave her a quick, hard kiss. “Much as I might want it to be.”

  He placed her back on her feet and stood, towering over her the way he always had. At six-foot-three, he was the kind of guy women noticed, and Emma couldn’t help wondering how he’d spent the past few years.

  Not alone. That much was for sure.

  Not a guy like Jack.

  “You’re right. It’s not the right time,” she managed to say. “There probably will never be a right time, so it’s better that we just shelve it.”

  She moved away, stood near the Christmas tree, and pretended that she was studying the ornaments. Truth? She couldn’t actually see anything. All she could do was feel the hard edge of disappointment and regret.

  “Shelve it?” he asked, and she thought she heard a hint of amusement in his voice.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “No. I don’t, so how about you explain it to me.” He took her hand, pulled her closer, and she couldn’t quite make herself move away again.

  “Shelve it as in forget it,” she offered. “Pretend it didn’t happen.”

  “By it, I’m assuming you mean the kiss.”

  “I sure as heck don’t mean our fireside chat,” she responded.

  “What if I tell you I don’t want to forget it?” he asked, his words just kind of hanging there for a minute longer than they should have, because she wasn’t sure what to say, didn’t know how to respond.

  “Because I don’t, Em,” he continued, filling the silence, filling her heart, too. She knew because it was slamming against the wall of her chest, galloping along and forcing her to take notice of it. “I wasn’t kidding when I said I shouldn’t have ever let you go.”

  “It’s the firelight,” she responded, the words rushing out and tangling all over themselves in their hurry to be said. “And the tree, and all the Christmas things. They make a person nostalgic.”

  “Do they also make a person want someone else more than he wants his next breath?” he retorted, his gaze hardening, his eyes narrowing.

  She remembered that look.

  She’d seen it the last day they’d spent together, when she’d told him that there was no way she was going to live in some Podunk town in New Hampshire when the entire world was there for her to explore. No way she was going to plot out a course for her future with someone she didn’t know would be there in a week or a month or a year.

  God! Had she really been so brash and foolish and insensitive? And was she really going to be that stupid again?

  “Jack,” she began, but she guessed he’d had enough, because he cut her off.

  “Tell you what, how about you go through your address book and decide who you want to invite to the Christmas party? I figure the house can hold seventy-five comfortably, and I’ve got thirty businesspeople I’m inviting. You’ve got forty-five invitations you can send. Make a list. While you do that, I’m going out.”

  “Out where?”

  “I have some work I need to do.”

  That was it. No further explanation.

  One minute he was there, the next he was grabbing his coat and walking out the door. He closed it. Not with a loud slam. With a quiet click that was just as horrible.

  She guessed she really was going to be as stupid as she’d been when she was in college, because she let him walk away, listening as his feet thudded on the porch stairs.

  He fired up the engine of his SUV, and she didn’t run outside to stop him. She just stood where she was, watching shadows dance on the parlor walls, listening to the crackle of the fire, and calling herself every kind of fool, because she wanted to run outside. She wanted to stop him. She wanted to tell him that the worst thing she’d ever done was let him walk out of her life the first time.

  Only it wasn’t the worst thing.

  The worst thing was letting him walk away again, but she did, because she’d been through a lot the past few years, and she thought that maybe it had scrambled her brains, messed with her emotions, made her imagine something that wasn’t really there.

  Like a man who cared.

  Like a chance at forever.

  Like all the dreams that she’d put aside because she’d had a thankless father to care for and a job to do and no time to think about anything but getting through the next day.

  “Idiot,” she muttered, and she wasn’t sure if she was an idiot for letting Jack leave or if she was an idiot for wishing that she’d asked him to stay.

  Behind her, something clattered across the floor, and the soft sound of sleigh bells filled the room.

  Surprised, she turned, saw something glimmering in the firelight. She scooped it up, holding it closer to the flames so that she could see it more clearly.

  It looked like the bell she’d kicked the other night.

  Surprised, she turned on the light, studying it more carefully. It definitely looked like the other bell, but if it was, how had it gotten in the parlor?

  The last time she’d seen it, Jack had been holding it.

  Had he dropped it?

  She glanced around the room as if she could find the answer there. All she found were the beautiful decorations, the cheerful fire, the invitations. The mystery and magic of Christmas all packed into one room.

  Jack had done that.

  He’d seen what she couldn’t. He’d known just how lovely the room would be.

  She placed the bell in a bowl on t
he mantel and lifted one of the invitations. They really were pretty. Really perfect.

  Just like Jack.

  God! She was such a fool.

  The doorbell rang, and she screamed, nearly dropping the invitation.

  “Everything okay in there?” a woman called through the closed door.

  “Fine,” Emma responded.

  She wasn’t expecting anyone, but she assumed it was one of the blue-haired church ladies, bearing another load of casseroles. There’d been a steady stream of them since the funeral. She really needed to call the pastor and ask him to put a stop to it. The freezer was ready to burst at the seams, and there was no way she’d ever eat her way through all the food.

  She yanked open the door and found a stranger with short gray hair, a pretty blue coat, and a broad smile.

  “Can I help you?” she asked, surprised, because she knew just about everyone in Apple Valley, but she didn’t know the woman standing on the porch.

  “You can if you’re Emma Baily,” the woman replied. She looked to be in her sixties, smile lines fanning out from her eyes, brackets framing her mouth. Something about her was familiar, but Emma couldn’t quite place it.

  “I’m Emma.”

  “I knew it. You look just like Sandra.” The woman grabbed Emma’s wrist, and the next thing she knew, she was being pulled into a bear hug.

  “You’re a friend of my mother’s?” Emma asked, extracting herself from the hug as graciously as she could.

  “A friend?” The woman’s smile faltered, and she smoothed the front of her coat, her hand trembling. “I’m her sister-in-law. Leigh. Your father’s younger sister.”

  “My father was an only child,” she responded, but she knew, even before Leigh responded, that he wasn’t, that everything he’d told her, all the stories about being the only child born to a couple late in life, had been a lie.

  “Is that what he told you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I should probably be surprised, but I’m not. Daniel and my father were cut from the same cloth.” Her gaze shifted to a point beyond Emma’s shoulders. “The house looks the same. At least, what I can see of it does.”

  She was fishing for an invitation.

  Emma thought she probably shouldn’t give one. After all, she didn’t know the woman from Adam, but that familiar thing in Leigh’s face? It was like a just-out-of-reach memory, niggling at the back of her mind and refusing to let her ignore it.

  If she had another minute, she might be able to figure out exactly who Leigh looked like. Not Daniel. He’d had brown hair, brown eyes, and tan skin. Leigh was as fair as Emma, her eyes gray, her lashes light brown. She had a small frame rather than Daniel’s large one, and she had a smile. Something that Emma couldn’t remember ever seeing on her father’s face.

  Still, for all Emma knew, the woman was a serial killer. Or—and this was a much more likely scenario—an opportunistic thief who’d pretend to be a relative to get a piece of whatever pie Daniel had left.

  Emma hadn’t bothered checking all her father’s bank account balances. There was a lot of money. She knew that. Plus whatever came from the sale of the house and its contents.

  Her stomach twisted at the thought.

  She ignored it.

  She was going to sell the house. She was going to move on.

  What she was not going to do was let Leigh into the house.

  Except, somehow she found herself stepping aside, gesturing for the woman to enter.

  “Come on in,” she said, and it didn’t even sound like her voice. It sounded like the voice of someone so worn down that she didn’t care that she might be letting a fraudster into her house, didn’t care that her father might have told her more lies than she’d ever imagined, didn’t care about anything except getting on with the day so that she could close herself in her room and cry.

  * * *

  The Christmas lights were still on.

  Jack could see them as he turned into Emma’s driveway. He could also see a shiny Mustang parked behind Emma’s truck. Texas plates. Whoever it was, they’d come a long way.

  Maybe one of Emma’s siblings?

  That seemed like a long shot. As far as Jack knew, not one of them was even mildly interested in ever returning to Apple Valley. They sure as heck hadn’t been interested enough to attend the funeral or to help Emma take care of their father. If one of them had shown up, it was probably for the inheritance. Hopefully, that wasn’t going to mean a long, drawn-out legal battle. Emma had been through enough. He didn’t want to see her go through more.

  And he sure didn’t want to cause her any trouble.

  That’s why he’d left. This wasn’t the time for deep conversations about the past or talks about what the future could be. It wasn’t time to try to force Emma into something she wasn’t ready for, either.

  They’d both regret that. Eventually.

  He’d sure been tempted, though.

  Tempted by her and by his own fierce need to make sure he didn’t miss out this time around. He’d let her go before, but he wasn’t planning to do it again.

  He pulled up beside the Mustang and got out of his SUV. It was late. Just a little past midnight, the sky dark, the moon shrouded by clouds. The air smelled like snow and burning wood. Jack smelled like cigarette smoke and mediocre beer.

  He’d spent an hour at the local dive bar, listening to locals talk about the weather and sports. He’d nursed a beer that tasted like crap, ate a couple of stale pretzels, and ignored the curious glances he’d gotten.

  There was no one there he knew, and he wasn’t in the mood to answer questions or to avoid them. He knew all about small-town life. He’d lived it when he was growing up, was living it again as an adult. He loved it, but news traveled fast, and he was certain everyone in Apple Valley knew about the Christmas party by now. He’d spoken to the local baker, who just happened to have old Victorian recipes for sponge cake, lemon pound cake, and hot chocolate that she’d been very excited to pull out. Charlotte was also going to set up tables with vintage doilies and pretty flowery arrangements.

  Then there was Tessa. The owner of a little antique store. She was also an interior designer. She’d volunteered to come help with the house, because she’d been there on a couple of occasions, visiting Emma, and she’d loved it.

  Yeah. He had plenty of local help, and he was certain that they were telling family all about his big plans. Family talked. People talked.

  But tonight? He hadn’t been in the mood for it, so he’d sipped his beer and kept his eyes focused on the oversized television. When he’d gotten tired of that, he’d driven through town and out into the countryside.

  No doubt about it: Eastern Washington was beautiful. He could imagine spending time there. He could imagine spending that time with Emma.

  He could imagine a lot of things.

  Before any of them could have even a hope of happening, he needed to help Emma with this—the house, the stuff, her heritage . . . giving it up or keeping it.

  He walked up the porch steps, the sound of jingling sleigh bells seeming to follow him. Surprised, he glanced over his shoulder, almost expecting to see a horse-drawn sleigh pulling up.

  There was nothing, of course.

  The front door opened, and Emma peered out.

  “Jack?” she whispered as if she were afraid of waking whoever was visiting.

  “Everything okay?” he responded.

  “My aunt is visiting. I wanted to warn you before you came inside. She’s in the room at the top of the stairs.” She stepped outside, her body drowning in oversized flannel pajamas, a coat tossed over her shoulders.

  “A surprise visit?” he asked, still listening for those bells to ring again.

  “A surprise aunt,” she replied. “She’s my father’s sister. They’ve been estranged for fifty years.”

  “And she just suddenly decided to come for a visit?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “I have time, if you
want to tell it.”

  “I wouldn’t want to bore you.”

  “There’s not a lot I can say for certain, Emma, but I can say that I have never found you boring.”

  She smiled wearily, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “I wish you weren’t so perfect, Jack.”

  “I’m not even close to perfect.”

  “Maybe I meant that I wish you weren’t so perfect for me.” She walked to the porch railing, rested her elbows on the white cross-post, and stared out into the driveway.

  “Why?”

  “Because we don’t work together. We established that years ago. Why revisit it?”

  “Things change. People change. What didn’t work before suddenly does.” That was all he was going to say, because he wasn’t going to argue for what he wanted. He’d just keep being there for her. Eventually she’d figure it out, or she wouldn’t. Either way, he’d fight with his actions. Not his words.

  The bell jingled again, the sound seeming to drift from somewhere behind the house.

  Emma straightened. “Did you hear that? It sounds like one of those harness bells we found.”

  “I was thinking the same. It was ringing when I pulled into the driveway, too. I heard it as I got out of the SUV. Go on inside. I’m going to see if I can figure out where it’s coming from.”

  She snorted. “That is not going to happen. I’m going with you.”

  “Put your coat on, then. It’s cold.” He helped her slide her arms in, the bell still jingling as if someone were shaking it over and over again. He tugged the zipper up, pulled the hood over Emma’s hair, and she offered a sweet smile that he couldn’t quite resist.

  “If I’d realized how much I’d missed your smile, I’d have come for a visit a long time ago,” he murmured, dropping a kiss to her lips, his hands wrapped around her slender biceps. He could have done a lot of things right then. He could have pulled her closer. He could have walked her back up the stairs and into the house. He could have shown her, in a dozen ways, just how well they worked, but she was Emma, and she needed a lot more than that from him.

  He backed away, took her hand. “Ready?” he said, and they walked around the side of the house together.