Her Holiday Prince Charming

by Christine Flynn

  She’d stated her conclusions about him more as fact than compliment. As if she saw his influence over his surroundings as basic to him as his DNA. He’d have been flattered by her impression of him, too, had it not been for how much control he’d actually given up to save the marriage that had ultimately ended anyway. He could see where she deserved something more than he’d given her, though. After insisting his business had been fine there and that she would be, too, he did feel somewhat obligated to explain why he hadn’t stuck around himself.

  “It didn’t lack for anything,” he admitted. At least, it hadn’t as far as he’d been concerned. “I left because my ex-wife wanted to teach in the city for a few years before coming back to raise a family. Those few years led to a few more and she changed her mind. About coming back and about the family,” he admitted, making a long story as short as possible. “When we left here, the business had barely gotten off the ground. But by the time I realized we weren’t coming back, Pax and I were established in Ballard. We had a good location. We had good people working for us. So it made sense to stay there. Like I said, my leaving had nothing to do with anything around here.”

  Thinking he’d covered all the bases, he added two more stacks of papers to the first.

  “She was a teacher?”

  “Kindergarten,” he said without looking up. “She was great with kids.”

  Her voice went soft. “You wanted children?”

  A folder landed on the pile. “Let’s get to this, shall we?”

  He’d said as much as he was going to. He’d closed the door on all the excuses Shauna had come up with to delay having a baby, and on how he’d hung in there because he’d promised to be there for better or worse. She’d kept asking him to bear with her on the baby thing. Especially after his business took off. She’d eventually changed her mind about a baby, but only after they’d divorced and she’d remarried. He’d realized then that it wasn’t that she hadn’t wanted children. She just hadn’t wanted his. She’d had no problem, however, keeping the house and a hefty chunk of their assets.

  Frowning at his thoughts, he turned the whole stack of what he’d unloaded toward Rory. The past was just that. Past. Over. Done.

  Rory saw a muscle in his jaw jerk.

  The demise of his marriage evidently hadn’t been his choice.

  She thought that an incredibly sad thing to have in common. She’d had no choice in hers ending, either.

  “I’m sorry about your wife.”

  “Ex.”

  “Ex-wife,” she corrected. She spoke quietly, feeling bad for having pushed, worse for what she’d discovered. He’d once had plans to build his life in the fiercely beautiful surroundings where he’d grown up, but circumstances had forced him to move away, and move on. Just as circumstances had forced her in an entirely different direction than she would have chosen, and led her to the very place she strongly suspected he truly no longer wanted to be.

  “Marriage can be complicated,” she said, beginning to appreciate the roots of his restiveness. “That must be why it’s never easy no matter how it ends.”

  The furnace kicked on with the rattle of the floor vent behind the counter. His head down, his hand on the printout, Erik slowly ruffled a corner of the pages with his thumb.

  He’d heard understanding in her voice, suspected he’d see it in her fragile features were he to look up. She seemed to think they shared the same kind of pain.

  He didn’t want that kind of sympathy. He didn’t want to poke around at what he’d finally grown so far beyond, or into what was undoubtedly fresher and more painful territory for her. And he definitely didn’t want to be as curious as he couldn’t seem to help being about her, or the man she’d married. She’d once spoken of her child’s loss. There’d been no doubt in his mind at the time that she hurt for her son. He just hadn’t considered how the boy’s pain could easily compound the depth of the loss she felt herself.

  Mostly, though, he didn’t want her getting so close, or to get close to her. Emotionally, anyway. Physically would be just fine. Heaven knew he was aware of her in ways he had no business considering. But she didn’t seem anything like many of the women he knew, those looking for a good time, no commitments involved. Not that he’d been intimate with anyone in longer than he cared to remember. He didn’t want any commitments, either. Still, he’d grown tired of the games, the shallow conversations and walking away feeling little more than...empty.

  He gave the top folder a nudge. “I’m sorry about yours, too,” he admitted, because he didn’t need to know the details to feel bad for her. “And you can have a good business here,” he assured, because it was his job to help her make that happen. “We just need to get to work so we can make sure of it.

  “This is my grandfather’s business plan,” he said, opening the folder. “Since you’re new to all this, it’ll be your bible. We can tweak it as we go, but to get you up and running, it’ll be simpler not to deviate from it too much at first. This—” he pulled the top printout forward “—is a stock list of the groceries they kept on hand, divided by type and vendor. Dairy, produce, snacks, staples, that sort of thing.

  “This printout,” he said, indicating the tallest stack of paper, “is your sporting goods department. There are certain vendors you’ll need to order from weeks or months in advance. Others can ship in twenty-four hours. You’ll want to get their new catalogs. Gramps said they’re all online, but some will mail hard copies. You’ll need to establish accounts in your name with all of them.”

  He handed her a CD. “It’s all on here for ordering and bookkeeping purposes. Look through it, list your questions and we’ll go over them later. I want to get you started on the physical inventory. You need to know what you have on hand, so it’s as good a way as any to get your feet wet.”

  The change of subject was as subtle to Rory as the slam of a door. He would share anything that would help her make a success of the business. But his personal life was now off-limits. Despite how deftly he’d closed off his past, however, he’d revealed wounds that might well have taken years to heal. Family mattered to him. His dreams had mattered. Once.

  She’d give anything to know how he’d survived knowing that the woman he’d married had no longer loved him. For her, even harder than Curt’s death was the knowledge that he might not have ever loved her at all.

  The deep tones of Erik’s voice somehow overrode the sick sensation that inevitably came with the thought. Or maybe it was simply his no-nonsense presence that managed to keep that awful feeling at bay.

  “We can start with things you can probably identify even if you’ve never used them. Camp stoves, lanterns, backpacking gear,” he said. “Or go with something that might be more of a challenge. Your choice.”

  He was there to teach her what she needed to know to reopen the store, not about how to live with questions that could now never be answered. From his deliberate allusion to her lack of knowledge about certain outdoor activities, she had the feeling, too, that he intended his baiting to pull her out of her thoughts. If not for her sake, definitely for his own.

  Since he had far more experience with both the store and self-survival, the least she could do was follow his lead.

  “More of a challenge.”

  He said he wasn’t surprised.

  First, though, she brought them each a cup of coffee, his black, hers with milk, which they took with a section of the printouts and a notepad to the back of the store. It was there that he told her he needed to leave by two o’clock, which, thankfully, was a few minutes before she needed to leave to catch the ferry to pick up Tyler. So for the next hour, she learned to identify lures, hooks, rods, reels, creels, the difference between a bobber and a sinker and the different weights of leader—which would be important to know, he told her, if a customer came in asking for twenty-pound test. At least now she’d kno
w they were asking for fishing line.

  “If someone wants fish, wouldn’t it be a whole lot more convenient to buy it from a grocery store?”

  Towering beside her, he remained focused on a column of item numbers. “Might be convenient, but it wouldn’t be nearly as much fun.”

  “I take it you’ve never been to Pike Place Fish Market.” She focused on a page of her own. “You pick out the fish you want and the guys behind the cases toss it down the line to the scale. You get it wrapped, packed, you don’t have to gut it and the show is free. That’s fun enough for me.”

  With that even-eyed way he had of looking at her, he slanted her a tolerant glance. “You’re missing the point.”

  “The point being?”

  “Being in the great outdoors. The thrill of landing a thirty-pound salmon, or pulling an eight-pound rainbow trout from a freshwater stream.”

  “The guilt of taking Nemo from his mother,” she muttered.

  “What?”

  “Never mind. I doubt that you know him.”

  “Please tell me that’s not the approach you’re going to take with your customers,” he muttered back, just before his glance dropped to her mouth—which had the odd effect of shutting her up and getting her back to verifying counts.

  They didn’t have time to move on to the modest sections of hiking, camping or boating equipment before she noticed the time. Since she had to drive right past the marina at the end of the street, and he’d tied his floatplane there, she asked if she could give him a ride and save him the two-block walk in the misty rain.

  Conscious of the time himself, he told her that would be great. She could go over the rest of the inventory on her own and call him with any questions. They’d meet again next week after she’d gone over the business plan. He also asked if he could take the drawing of her new floor plan with him.

  Thinking he intended to give the layout she wanted some thought, she handed it over, along with a travel mug of coffee since he seemed to like hers. Minutes later, he’d just tossed his briefcase into the back of her fuel-efficient little car and folded his big frame into the passenger seat when her cell phone chimed.

  One glance at the caller ID had her bracing herself an instant before she dropped the phone back into her bag, started the engine and backed up. The phone continued to chime as she pulled onto the wet two-lane road and headed down the rise.

  Erik’s glance cut from her purse to her profile.

  “I’ll call her back,” she said. “It’s Audrey. My mother-in-law. She’s calling about plans for Christmas.” The woman was actually returning Rory’s call, something it had taken her three days to do. The conversation would be short, but it wasn’t one she wanted to have with Erik in the car.

  “She was my mother-in-law,” she corrected. Technically, Rory was no longer related to the Linfields. Audrey had apparently pointed that out to Lillian Brinkley, the wife of the country club president, who had ever so thoughtfully shared it in the ladies’ room with two other members of the socially connected among the mourners at Curt’s funeral. Rory had been seeking a few minutes of quiet while closed in a stall at the time.

  According to Audrey, via Lillian, Rory’s vows with her son had been “until death do them part.” They’d parted, however sadly. End of legal relationship.

  As strained as her relationship with Curt’s parents had always been beneath the polite manners and civility, Rory hadn’t doubted the remarks at all.

  “She’s really only Tyler’s grandmother now.” That was the only part that mattered, anyway.

  The wipers swiped at the heavy mist on the windshield. Through the veil of gray, the little marina came into clearer view. Erik barely noticed. For a couple of hours he’d caught glimpses of a woman whose guard with him had begun to ease, a smart, savvy woman who possessed no small amount of determination, ingenuity and a remarkable willingness to step beyond her comfort zone.

  What he saw now was a woman doing her level best to mask disquiet. He’d seen her do it before, for her son’s sake. Her attempts seemed to work fine on her five-year-old, but Erik recognized strain when he saw it. With her eyes on the road, he watched her take a deep breath, slowly ease it out.

  Whatever was going on with Tyler’s grandmother had her hands going tight on the wheel.

  The heater whirred in its struggle to produce warmth, gravel crunching beneath the tires as she pulled to a stop by the wooden stairs that led to the long floating dock. In the choppy, chill water of the sound, his white Cessna Amphibian floated and yawed where he’d secured it at the end of the pier, well away from the few sport boats moored there this time of year.

  He almost always felt better flying from this place than toward it.

  “Thank you for your help today,” she murmured, her hands now tucked at her waist, her shoulders hunched against the still-cold air. “I’ll come up to speed on everything as fast as I can. I promise.”

  The bravado behind her smile pulled at protective instincts he’d rather ignore. He knew she wanted to belong there, in a place she’d known absolutely nothing about until last week. He knew she wanted to make a good home for her son. He suspected, too, that she could use a little reassurance on both counts.

  After all, she was pretty much on her own here.

  “I’ll pass that on to our benefactor,” he promised back, wanting to keep his purpose there in perspective. “And for what it’s worth, Rory, you and your son really should do well here.” He hesitated, perspective faltering. “I’d always thought it was a good place to raise a child.”

  He reached for the door, cold salt air blasting in as he opened it. “I’ll call you next week. In the meantime, call me if you have questions.” He climbed out, then ducked his head back in to retrieve his case from the backseat. “Thanks for the ride.”

  Rory had barely opened her mouth to tell him he was welcome before the door closed. In the space of a heartbeat she’d swallowed the words and was staring at his broad, leather-covered shoulders as he headed for the weathered stairs.

  He’d made it halfway down the dock, his long stride sure and certain despite the drift and roll beneath his feet, when she finally put the car into gear. Even with the surface beneath him shifting with the unpredictable current, the man seemed as steady as a rock.

  I’d always thought it was a good place to raise a child.

  The admission had cost him. She felt as certain of that as she did of her gratitude for his having shared it. He knew his opinion mattered to her. She’d told him so herself. But sharing that particular thought had also demanded a hasty retreat back to the world he now lived in, back to a world so different from what he’d once wanted.

  What stung, though, wasn’t how anxious he’d been to retreat to the life he’d created for himself. It was the sharp, undeniable feeling that he had quite deliberately retreated from her.

  Chapter Five

  Rory returned the call to Curt’s mother within a minute of dropping off Erik at the dock. When Audrey didn’t answer, she left a message saying she was sorry she’d missed her and asking her to please call back as soon as it was convenient.

  Despite two other attempts to reach her, it apparently hadn’t been “convenient” for four days.

  The conversation they’d had still had Rory reeling three hours later. Thanks to the distraction a text from Erik provided, however, at that particular moment she didn’t have to struggle to mask the resentment, offense and indignation she wasn’t about to impose on her little boy, anyway.

  “Is Erik at our new house now, Mom?”

  Following the beam of her headlights through the steady rain, she murmured, “Probably, honey.”

  “Can I help him again?”

  “We’ll have to see. I’m not sure why he’s coming.”

  The text she’d received from Erik that
morning hadn’t given her a clue.

  Am in mtgs. Need to know if you will be home around 6.

  She’d texted back that she’d be there by 6:15 p.m.

  His reply had been a wholly unenlightening See you then.

  Since he’d indicated he’d be in meetings, she hadn’t called to see what he wanted. She hadn’t talked to him at all since he’d closed her out at the dock last week, even though he’d told her to call if she had any questions.

  She had dozens. Between online catalogs and searches, she’d figured out the answers to most of them, though, and talked herself out of contacting him about the rest. Those she simply added to her list to ask at their next meeting. Partly because they weren’t urgent. Mostly because she suspected that what she really wanted was more of the relief she’d so briefly experienced when he’d assured her that she and Tyler would be all right. The sensation hadn’t lasted long enough to do much more than tease her with the hope of finding the security she hadn’t truly felt in forever, but she desperately needed to feel something positive about the more personal aspects of her life—and that wasn’t something she should be seeking from him at all.

  There also existed the unnerving little fact that she’d just wanted to hear his voice—something she insisted she shouldn’t even be thinking about, considering that she was nothing more than an obligation to him.

  That glaring bit of reality mingled with her turmoil over her in-laws as she turned onto the gravel drive just past the store. Through the silvery drizzle, her headlights illuminated a black, bull-nosed pickup truck loaded with something large covered in plastic.