“Why not?” he demanded.
“It’s snowing!” Her voice climbed in exasperation.
Already, they were beginning to get on each others’ nerves. How were they going to make it through the night—and, worse, maybe through all of tomorrow, if it came down to that?
She glanced again at Nick, then deliberately away. Again, she told herself she could handle this without his help. “We’ll have to sleep here tonight, Tommy. We have to wait for the snow to stop.”
“I’m not going home to M-Mommy?” His voice quivered, and he clutched the afghan again.
“You don’t need—” Mollie began.
Lyssa leapt in, knowing where that was going. “We’ll all be here with you.”
“But I w-want my mommy and daddy.” This time, his lip quivered. His eyes filled with tears.
“Not tonight, buddy,” Nick said. “They’ll be waiting for you when you get home. But tonight, we’re in this together. One for all and all for one.”
Tommy looked at him, his eyes wide, tears trapped on his lower lashes. “You m-mean, like the Three Musketeers?”
“Yeah,” Nick said, “just like that. Only we’ll be the Five Musketeers. Right, Miss Lyssa?” Over the boy’s head, Nick’s gaze, cool and direct, met hers.
He had seen her look at him and then away again without asking for his support. Without letting him handle Tommy. And, of course, that would have hurt his pride enough to make him speak up now. What did he care how much she had been hurt? But she couldn’t let him know that.
“Right, Mr. Nick,” she said firmly, raising her chin.
“O-Okay.” Tommy wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.
Nick gave her a bitter smile, underscoring how unhappy he was about their situation.
As if she liked it any better! As if she couldn’t see the parallels between now and a few months ago. As if she had forgotten he had once put his job ahead of her and obviously couldn’t wait to do that again.
With one little twist, the quote he had shared with Tommy could represent his personal motto:
One for all—and all for me.
She held back a frustrated sigh. Staying here with him might turn out to be even more of a challenge than she had feared.
“Is this everything, Miss Lyssa?” Mollie asked, frowning. She held up the bowl of chicken wings Lyssa had just handed to her. “Mr. Nick needs to eat more than this.”
“We all need to eat more than that. And no, it’s not everything. I’ve got more leftovers in the oven, remember?”
“Oh. Yeah.” Mollie gave a huge sigh of relief before exiting through the kitchen doorway.
Lyssa took a firm hold on the casseroles she had heated up for their dinner. Then, her steps dragging, she headed for the dining area, too.
Halfway through the door, she halted. She had left the seating arrangements up to Nick and the kids. Her big mistake. They had gathered at one end of the huge oak table, with Nick seated at the head. He or one of the boys had moved a couple of chairs in closer to him on either side, making a cozy little cluster.
Wonderful.
She took a deep breath and moved toward the table. Nick examined the casserole dishes in her hands. He grinned—a genuine grin this time, unlike the last one he’d given her. The sight of it made her stomach flip-flop and her hands tremble. Then she noticed it did nothing to brighten his eyes and his gaze came nowhere near to meeting hers. For another moment, she froze. But only for a moment. She couldn’t let him think he was getting to her.
At the table, she set the casseroles on trivets and smiled, hoping her expression looked more convincing than his. “Here we go. The best kind of party food—leftovers.”
“Now, this is the life, isn’t it, kids? Supper looks great.” Somehow, he’d managed to sound satisfied when she knew he didn’t feel that way at all.
Neither did she.
From the minute she’d tried to get into her too-tight elf costume, nothing had gone right today.
Every single wrong thing had filled her with anxiety. That nerve-wracking ride down the lane, the disaster of the fallen tree, their uncertain trek back up the driveway again to safety.
Yet all of those combined hadn’t come close to stretching her nerves to the limit—because after her unexpected reunion with Nick, she’d had no nerves left. Playing Miss Elf to his Santa. Helping him with the kids. Being near him. Having to touch him now he was injured. And worst of all, spending who knew how much time doing more of the same while they were snowbound together.
Alone in the lodge, except for the trio of kids. She had always loved children but had never felt as grateful to have some around her as she did right now.
“Supper looks okay,” Tommy mumbled. “But where’s dessert?”
She turned to him. Already the kids had provided her with plenty of distractions—and not to mention, some much-needed comic relief. She said a silent wish that those distractions would continue, because she certainly needed something to take her mind off Nick.
“Wouldn’t you like to eat dinner, first?” she asked.
“I already ate before.”
“No, I don’t believe you did, except for the hot chocolate you drank when we came back inside.”
“You didn’t eat at the party,” Mollie reminded him with a heavy dose of smugness. “You were too busy trying to find Santa.”
“And now I want to find my dessert.” Tommy stuck out his lip mutinously.
Lyssa shook her head. Her sister’s classroom wasn’t the only school in town where she had volunteered her time. Tommy was in kindergarten now—as he had made sure to inform Santa. But from her days at Snowflake Valley’s preschool, she recalled his stubborn streak. Like almost any five-year-old, he could and would push to try to get his way.
“Supper first,” Mollie said firmly. She slipped into the vacant chair between Nick and Tommy, leaving another empty chair on the opposite side of the table between Nick and Brent.
It would have looked rude—if not outright odd—for Lyssa to sit at the far side of one of the boys, away from Nick, and leave such an obvious gap in their seating arrangement. But, oh, she wished she could sit even farther away from him—like, in another room.
Reluctantly, she headed toward the vacant chair.
“I think Mollie’s right, kid,” Nick told Tommy. “You wouldn’t want to fill up on just sweets, would you?”
All three children looked at him in disbelief. Even Lyssa came to an abrupt halt again, thinking about the many lovely, luscious, sugary concoctions that had helped make her elf costume so tight.
Judging by Nick’s rueful expression, he realized he hadn’t scored with that approach at all. “Well, anyhow, look at all this good food. You’ve got a whole bowlful of chicken wings, right in front of you.”
“Don’t like chicken wings. I like drumsticks.” Tommy flung himself back against his chair and crossed his arms.
Swallowing a smile, Lyssa passed close behind Nick’s chair. “Need any help?” she asked.
“No problem,” he muttered. “Tommy, my man,” he said more energetically, “let me give you a lesson in life. Sometimes you have to negotiate.”
“What’s that?”
“That means talk things over, figure out how you can compromise.”
“What’s that?” Tommy’s tone clearly said his limited patience would soon run out.
As Lyssa took her seat, she looked at Nick in surprise. Compromise certainly hadn’t been high on his list of priorities with her a few months ago. She had tried to talk with him about her feelings, about his obsession with his job, but he couldn’t—or maybe wouldn’t—see her side of things.
Brent and Mollie had followed the exchange, swinging their heads back and forth as if they were watching the volleys at a tennis match. Now, all three kids stared at Nick, too.
Lyssa couldn’t help herself. She leaned closer to him. “Troubleshoot this,” she murmured.
He frowned, then turned back to Tommy. “Compro
mise means you have to give and take.”
“I got it!” The little boy flung himself forward again, grinning and thumping his fist against the tabletop. “I give you chicken. And I take dessert.”
Lyssa and Mollie laughed aloud. Brent tried to smother a chuckle.
Nick shook his head as if in irritation, but even he couldn’t hide the half-smile that touched his lips and this time also brightened his eyes.
At the sight, Lyssa swallowed her grin and looked away. She didn’t want to see him happy and smiling. She didn’t want to see him at all.
When they’d dated, she had gotten used to Nick’s excitement about a new project he’d accepted, a takeover bid he’d engineered, a company merger that required delicate negotiations only he could handle. The trouble was, his exhilaration over all those things shut her out.
But, without fail, his smile would draw her in again.
At full strength or half, that smile had always brought an added sparkle to his eyes, a glow that, unfortunately, was often connected not to something about her but to his latest business coup.
It was hard to compete with million-dollar deals. After a while, she’d given up trying. They wouldn’t ever reach a compromise, anyway. His interests and hers could never meet anywhere in the middle. How could they? Her value systems were so different from Nick’s, they might have come from different planets.
If only she had realized all that before she’d fallen for the man…
Chapter Six
Nick eased onto the couch in the living room and sat sideways, lifting his foot to rest it on the cushion beside him. Thanks to the aspirin Lyssa had given him with supper, his ankle was doing well. As long as he didn’t put weight directly on the foot, he felt no pain.
Settled as comfortably as he could hope to get, he sat staring into the fire. He didn’t want to think about Lyssa upstairs with the kids, where she’d gone to take care of putting the two younger ones to bed.
And he sure didn’t want to think about Lyssa joining him downstairs at any minute. Even now, he could hear footsteps on the stairs.
He grabbed a magazine from the coffee table and spread it open in front of him, feeling like a cross between a lily-livered coward and a manner-less creep—and somehow not giving a damn. Why should he care what Lyssa thought of him? She had cut him out of her life months ago.
Seconds later, to his surprise and relief, he saw it wasn’t Lyssa but Mollie who entered the living room. He smiled at her. “Thought you were getting tucked into bed.”
“It’s only seven thirty.”
“But you’ve had a very big day.”
“You, too, Mr. Nick.” She sidled over to the couch and leaned against the arm closest to him. He left his foot propped up but had to twist sideways to see her face. She was frowning. “Did Miss Lyssa’s medicine help your ankle?” she asked.
“Yes, it did. I should be good as new tomorrow.” A stretch there, maybe, but Mollie looked extraordinarily concerned. She had eyed him with that same brow-furrowed expression all through dinner, too. Nice of her to worry.
Maybe he’d jumped to a conclusion with his first impression of her, when she’d been so strict about all the Santa rules.
“Where is Miss Lyssa, anyhow?” he asked. Great. How low could he go? He couldn’t keep his mind off Lyssa, and now he was using this kid as a resource to gather information about her.
“She’s taking care of Tommy. He’s a baby. I’m not. That’s why I’m down here.”
But even as she said the words, he could see Lyssa’s feet in her borrowed bedroom slippers as she padded down the stairs.
He focused on Mollie, who had her back to the stairway. But he deliberately pitched his voice loud enough for Lyssa to hear. “No need to worry. I’m going to be fine, you know.” That would show her.
“Yes, I know.” Mollie leaned toward him until her nose almost touched his chin and whispered, “But you’d better be careful.”
He raised his brows and stared. She couldn’t have picked up on the vibes flowing between him and Lyssa…could she? “Careful about what?” he asked cautiously.
In the background, he saw Lyssa freeze.
“You laughed at suppertime,” Mollie hissed.
He did a double take. Maybe he wasn’t that far wrong about her, after all. He sent a quick look across the room at Lyssa. Obviously, she had overheard Mollie, because she stood there struggling to hide a smile. He looked back at the girl. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know there was a rule around here about laughing. Do we have to follow it all day or just during meals?”
She rolled her eyes. “There’s no rule. But you sounded just like Santa Claus.”
What could he say to that? Grimacing, he shifted his position on the couch. Questioning clients, he could handle. Kids were another matter. With Tommy, he’d hit it lucky a couple of times. With this little girl, he was out of his depth and knew it.
At the party, he’d once or twice overheard her call his assistant “Miss Lyssa.” No doubt about it there, his elf’s cover had been blown. But what about the Jolly Old Elf himself? That afternoon, Mollie had definitely sounded as though she thought he was Santa. Telling her the truth now might devastate the girl.
As if seeing his dilemma, Lyssa crossed the room.
Mollie looked up at her. “Tell him, Miss Lyssa. I know Mr. Nick’s not really Santa Claus. Because there is no real Santa Claus. But Tommy doesn’t know it.”
“Is that causing a problem?” Lyssa asked.
“Yes.” Mollie waved her arms so forcefully, she almost fell over the arm of the couch into his lap. “At the party, Tommy heard you say ‘Nick,’ and now he thinks Mr. Nick is Santa.”
“That’s not such a big deal,” he said, smiling at her.
She opened her mouth.
“Mollie”—Lyssa rested her hand on the girl’s shoulder—“you’re tired. It’s been a long day. Why don’t you go on up to bed? Mr. Nick and I can worry about this. Right, Mr. Nick?” She smiled brightly at him, probably the last thing she felt like doing. Not once since they had first seen each other again that afternoon had she given him a genuine smile. Nothing real about this one, either.
“Right,” he agreed. “You head on upstairs, Mollie. I’ll take care of everything.”
She gave him a huge grin that made up for all Lyssa’s smile had lacked. He couldn’t help grinning back.
Mollie ducked her head and giggled, then nearly ran toward the stairs.
Lyssa moved away almost as quickly.
Without looking at him, she walked to the fireplace, took up the metal poker, and prodded a log. “You seem to have made a conquest.”
“What?” he asked, surprised. “You mean the kid? No, I’ve seen that expression on plenty of my clients’ faces. She’s just relieved I said I’ll take care of everything. No big deal. It’s what I do.”
“Oh, really? And here I thought you looked like you needed help.”
“Not a chance.” He laughed. Shifted position. Shoved a pillow under his right knee. All delaying tactics.
He probably should have thanked her for her help with his boot, but doing so now would only remind her of his injury. It was bad enough she’d already seen him hurt and wincing in pain. Better for him to keep quiet, to dedicate himself to the age-old male tradition that said “never let them see you sweat.”
When he said nothing else, she stabbed at the log. A portion of it lighted into flame and crumbled. She stood for a while staring at the pile of glowing embers.
Finally, he asked, “Did the boys get settled?”
“I think so.”
“How’s Tommy doing?”
She shrugged. “Once we got upstairs, he decided he didn’t like the idea of sleeping alone.” She set the poker on its stand and turned to him. “I’m sure you’d have found a way to convince him. You seem to have a knack for dealing with the kids.”
She sounded oddly annoyed, probably at the idea of having to compliment him.
“Yeah. I’d h
ave handled Mollie fine, too, if she hadn’t deferred to you first.” Resting comfortably against the couch, he nodded and smiled in satisfaction, always ready to talk about one of his favorite subjects. “Negotiation is all in the timing, Lyssa. You talk with the other party, get a feel for them. Then even before they give you their demands, you know what they want. So you offer that and turn it into a win-win situation. Easy enough to do with something like Tommy’s sleeping arrangements. How did you manage with him?”
“I guess I’m not the negotiator you are. Let’s just say, it wasn’t win-win. More like concede-win-lose.” Now, though she looked at him without blinking, he had the odd impression she didn’t see him. “Of course I wouldn’t force a child to sleep alone in a strange house. I put Tommy in with Brent. He was chattering away when I left them.”
“Brent must have liked that.”
“That’s the lose. I’m sure Brent would rather have been on his own. Although, to tell you the truth, I’m not sure he even noticed. He had his earbuds in and his music cranked up. Tommy didn’t pay a bit of attention to that, just kept talking.” She shook her head.
“You think he’ll get to sleep?”
“I’m sure he will. They all will. After our hike through the blizzard, they’re worn out. And Tommy burned up a lot of energy running in the snow.”
She sank onto a chair opposite him and slumped against the cushion. Firelight outlined her profile, throwing her features into light and shadow. Beneath the tinge of color, her skin looked pale, her expression drained. He wanted to reach out to her. At one time, she would have settled beside him on the couch and he would have taken her into his arms.
Not now. And never again.
“We ought to turn in, too,” he said flatly. “You’re probably as worn out as the kids.” She didn’t answer. No surprise there. He knew she wouldn’t admit to being exhausted. “Have we got another bedroom upstairs?”
Instantly, her eyes narrowed and her chin jutted upward. “We have two bedrooms upstairs.”
He held up his hands in mock surrender at her tone. What did she think, that he intended to share her room? And her bed? Six months ago, he might have had a shot at succeeding with that. Now, he knew better than to throw the offer out onto the bargaining table.
Snowbound with Mr. Wrong (Snowflake Valley) Page 6