What The Heart Knows

by Gadziala, Jessica

  “Pretty little Hannah terrified you?” Emily asked.

  “Pretty little Hannah is hell on heels,” Elliott countered. “But yeah. When she took off to Stars Landing to stay with Sam...” he stopped, shaking his head at the memory. “I had no power to fight coming right over here and dragging her back with me. That's how much I needed to have her with me. I couldn't even think of trying to get work done knowing she was gone.”

  “And yet James has the exact opposite affliction,” Emily said, raising a brow at his logic.

  “True, but only because a hardworking nine-to-fiver suit is the furthest thing from what James is naturally. He couldn't take off to some island without thinking about you in the sand next to him. Or go to some ski resort in Vail and not think about you guys at the lodge.”

  Emily lowered her eyes at him. So much for the sanctity of friendship. “She told you about that?”

  Elliott grimaced, knowing he was going to be in trouble for that at some later date. “She might have mentioned it. No details,” he said, holding up his hands like he was the innocent party in it all. “Don't be mad at her, she's really invested in the idea of you guys. I thought it was just the pregnancy hormones but...”

  “No see,” Emily said, pointing a finger at him. “you created that monster. Before you, the woman didn't even date so she would never have thought to interfere with other people's love lives.”

  Elliott shrugged. “She has the best intentions at heart here. And, for what it counts, she was right. You guys did hit it off.” He paused, looking uncomfortable. “Maybe after the new year, I will send him back down here...”

  “No. Please,” Emily said, shaking her head. “you two just stop interfering. If we are supposed to be more than a fling, we will be. Without any help from well-meaning outsiders.”

  “Alright,” Elliott said, nodded. “I'll try to call off Hannah. No promises, mind you. I think she might be more stubborn than I am. But I really do hope you two work it out eventually. It's weird at work. Stuff is actually getting done. It's freaking me out.”

  “Well anything I can do to make your business suffer,” she said, chuckling. “just let me know.”

  Elliott smiled. “I'm glad to see you're okay. You'll stop looking so awful in a few days,” he added, winking.

  “Go get back to your wife,” Emily said. “she's convinced you and Isaac have some kind of bro code that she is not in on.” At his blank look, she added. “he doesn't cry for you.”

  “Oh, that,” he said, smiling sheepishly. “I don't have the heart to tell her to stop trying to sing to him. She... ah...”

  “Has the voice of a dying rabbit?” Emily supplied.

  “Pretty much,” Elliott laughed. “I find it charming, but Isaac... not so much.”

  Emily laughed. “I'll buy him a lullaby CD for Christmas. One in French... so she can't sing along.”

  Elliott chuckled. “I like you, Emily.”

  Emily shrugged a shoulder. “I like you too, Elliott. Now get.”

  After he was gone, she grabbed as many platters as she could carry and took them to her room, piling them on one side of her bed. She wasn't going to think about the conversation with Elliott. It wasn't going to help anything. She was just going to lay in bed, watch old Christmas movies, and eat junk food. That was the plan.

  Twenty-Six

  Emily woke up the next morning with a half-eaten oatmeal cookie still in her hand and a banging at her bedroom door. She grumbled, getting slowly out of bed in her sweat clothes and fluffy purple robe.

  “Keep your panties on,” she called, but the knocking persisted. She pulled the lock and ripped the door open. And stumbled back a step. “What the...”

  There in her doorway, wearing thin black and white plaid pajama bottoms and his Stars Lodge sweatshirt, was James. Looking exhausted and disheveled. His hair was sticking up in every direction and there was a strong stubble on his face, more than a five o'clock shadow, but less than a beard.

  “Jesus,” he said under his breath, looking at her.

  He heard it was bad. When he got the phone call, he was told she had been viciously attacked. It had been the night before, around midnight. His cell phone started ringing shrilly over and over. Normally, he didn't pick up calls he didn't recognize, but the lateness of the hour and the fact that they called six times, finally dragged him out of bed.

  “Hello?”

  “What the fuck are you still doing there?” the voice accused.

  “Excuse me?” he asked, running a hand through his hair.

  “You should be in Stars Landing right now,” the voice said. A man, slightly familiar but he couldn't place it.

  “Nope, I am done in Stars Landing for the time being.”

  “What the fuck is wrong with you? Man, you don't deserve her. Forget it.” Then the line went dead.

  James looked down at the phone for a minute before putting it back down, shaking his head, and heading toward bed. But then it started ringing again. He walked over to it, hitting the answer button. “I don't know what your deal is here... but stop calling me,” he growled into the receiver.

  “I'm sorry but when someone I care about gets viciously fucking attacked by a former employee, I try not to be such a dick about it.” Line dead again.

  James looked down at his phone for a long minute. Someone he cared about got viciously attacked? That didn't make any sense. If that had happened, he would have heard about it. Besides, the list of people he really cared for was short.

  But someone had obviously been attacked and he wouldn't be able to sleep if he didn't find out who, so he hit redial and waited.

  “What?”

  “Who got attacked?”

  There was a long silence on the other end, so long that James looked down at the phone to make sure he hadn't been hung up on again. “Emily got attacked,” the voice said finally.

  If he lived a thousand lives, he would never again feel the way he felt in that moment. Like someone had opened him up from throat to belly and raked a hand down his insides. Like his lungs were filling up with fluid and he couldn't breathe. Like the floor was giving way underneath his feet. Like the whole world was unraveling around him and he just stood there dumbly.

  “What? How?

  “Remember your grand plan to ferret out the person who was stealing from the inn?” the man asked and James finally figured out where he knew the voice from. It was the man from Emily's room. The man she threw in his face at Elliott's house. The man he had spoken to when he had called the inn the other night. Dane. What a douchebag name. “Yeah well maybe you should have been a fucking man and came back down here and dealt with that yourself. Didn't it cross your mind that it could be dangerous for her?” There was a pause, a sigh. “Look, whatever. What's done is done. But it's really messed up that you wouldn't come down here... even just as a boss...”

  “I didn't know,” James said, his voice a hoarse whisper.

  Another long silence. “Well now you know.”

  “Is she...” he couldn't get any more out than that. Was she alright? Was she in the hospital? He wasn't sure what he wanted to ask. He needed to know it all and his tongue was being clumsy.

  “She's recovering back at the inn,” Dane said. “So what are you gonna do about it?” he asked, but it was rhetorical because, yet again, he hung up.

  James had stood there for a moment, trying to remind himself to breath. And then he was moving, grabbing a sweatshirt out of his closet and slipping on shoes. He threw his wallet and phone in his pocket and was in his car within three minutes of that phone call.

  He had called Elliott's cell on his way, hearing a groggy Hannah answer. “James? Is everything alright?”

  “Emily was attacked,” he said. There was a long pause that had him tightening his jaw. “You knew.”

  “We're in Stars Landing, James. Remember? For Christmas?”

  “How could you not tell me?”

&n
bsp; Hannah snorted. “Maybe if you treated her better, I would have. Besides, don't be mad at me. She's my friend. My loyalty is to her. Be mad at your brother. He knew too. Actually, he just got back from talking to her a little while ago.”

  James watched the road fly by, bright lights in the dark night, hard on his tired eyes. She was right. He had treated her like shit. He couldn't imagine what she had been thinking about him after that day in Elliott's kitchen. That was uncalled for. He had fucked her with every moment of frustration and self-loathing and fear that he had been trying to drown in alcohol and other women. He had fucked her like punishment.

  All because of what? Another man? Another man she was clearly not involved with if he was calling to call him a dick for not caring enough about her.

  He was such an idiot.

  He drove, only stopping once to refill his tank, getting to the inn just shy of seven the next morning. He ran up the front yard, swinging the door open and finding a small mob standing in the front hall.

  Meggie and Devon. Lena and Eric. Dane. Maude.

  Devon nodded his head at him. Meggie smiled coyly. Lena and Eric looked at him like they were surprised to see him there. Maude was grinning. A huge, wide, winning grin. Dane inclined his head in acknowledgment and he swore he heard 'bout time' murmured under the man's breath.

  “Where is she? How is she?” he asked to no one person in particular.

  “She's in her room,” Dev answered. “and she's doing alright.”

  “Alright? What does alright mean?”

  “Go see her,” Lena suggested, taking in his wild eyes. So unlike the easy-going, lazy, charming man she had worked with for two years.

  “Right,” James said, moving down past the staircase, the dining room, the kitchen, into the staff hallway. He pounded on her door with every drop of worry he was feeling.

  Then she had opened the door and he was hit with duel feelings of relief and despair. Because she was there. Alive. Intact. Standing. Moving around. But she was also broken.

  Her eye was blackened and there was a nasty, deep gash with stitches running across it down the side of her face from her eyebrow to the bottom of her cheekbone. Her hair was pulled to one side of her head, letting the wound on the other side breathe and heal. And be painfully visible.

  Dane was right. He should have considered that employee theft could be dangerous. He should have been less selfish and thought of her safety.

  “James?” Emily asked, and he realized he had been staring at her for way too long.

  “Frank Gallucio doesn't like it when you hit on his sister,” he said, smirking.

  “Hardy har,” Emily said, snorting. “I'm Scarface.”

  James nodded, knowing she would get the Al Capone reference. His smile dropped from his lips though and he shook his head, reaching out toward her face. “Oh baby...” he said, his voice sad.

  Emily felt a fist tighten in her belly and recognized it as hope. But mingled with it too, resentment, fear. “I'm not your baby,” she said, trying to keep from turning her face into his hand.

  “Aren't you, though?” he asked, sending her a smile.

  Emily took a deep breath. What was this? This hot and cold thing? One minute he wants her, the next he is out of town, the next he fucks her like he hates her, and now he was there with sweet words slipping from his silver tongue? What was the truth of it all?

  “Why are you here, James?” she asked, turning away from his fingers.

  “I got a call last night...”

  “That bastard,” she growled, thinking of Elliott. About how he claimed he was going to try to mind his own business with the two of them.

  “He is that,” James agreed, nodding. “Has the phone manners of a barbarian. He hung up on me like three times. After calling me a dick.”

  Emily's brows drew together. “Elliott called you a dick?”

  “No,” James said, rubbing the scruff on his jaw. “Well... not this time anyway. Dane did.”

  “Dane?” Emily asked, thinking about the rough-and-tough, hard fucking, hard living twenty-something he had once been. He would kick the ass out of this older, softer Dane. “Weird.”

  James leaned a shoulder on the doorjamb. “Tell me what happened.”

  Emily shrugged a shoulder. God, she was tired of the story. “I caught Molly in the office. The night you called. I realized I fired Alec wrongfully so I walked over there to rehire him and apologize. Then when I got back... Molly,” she noticed his confused look. “one of the maids,” she clarified. “was in my office. And she admitted to doing it. And then somehow thought I would still keep her here. So I said I was calling the sheriff and...” she trailed off, gesturing toward her head.

  “I should have been here.”

  “Yeah, you should have. Then you could be the one with a concussion.”

  “And a boatload of desserts,” James said, looking past her. “Why are they all on the bed?”

  “Oh,” Emily said, looking over her shoulder at them. “I'm having an affair.”

  “With all of them?” he said, eyeing the pile of brownies. “I've been driving all night,” James said, giving her puppy dog eyes. “I didn't even stop to get food.”

  “Try that look on Meggie,” Emily suggested. “she might feel pity.”

  They were getting too far from the point. Both of them were too skilled at sidestepping the issues.

  “Emily,” he said, sounding serious.

  “James,” she mocked in his same tone.

  He rolled his eyes. “I owe you an apology. For the way I left and... how I acted when I saw you again.”

  “You mean hatefucking me in your brother's kitchen?”

  James closed his eyes at the memory. She was right. That's exactly what it was. But she didn't understand. He hated himself, not her.

  “I thought...”

  “That I was with Dane,” Emily interrupted. “That I was just a slut who slept around.”

  “I didn't think that,” he said, shaking his head. “I thought you just saw me as a mistake. Meanwhile I really wanted to get more of you. It didn't exactly do wonders for my ego. But that's not an excuse. I treated you badly and I'm sorry for that.”

  Emily nodded. It was the most he could say. There's nothing more he could do than apologize. And the least she could do was accept that. “Okay.” She shrugged gingerly. “At least now we can work together amicably.”

  “Right,” he said, laughing, a short self-deprecating sound. He turned away for her for a moment, raking a hand through his already disheveled hair.

  How do you tell someone something so important? How does someone who has never even really believed in the idea, let alone experienced the feelings, admit them to the other person? Was there a right way?

  Because if there was a wrong way, he was sure he would find a way to do that instead. He was so out of his depths.

  He turned back to Emily, taking in her curiosity with a growing feeling of urgency. “I need to tell you something,” he started. “but I feel like I wont get it right.”

  “That's always a possibility,” Emily agreed. “but you should try anyway. You tend to regret the things you didn't say just as much as the things you shouldn't have said.”

  James nodded, reaching out and grabbing both of her hands, looking down at them for a long time. “I know that I tend to come off as... flippant and unambitious and...”

  “Cocky?” Emily supplied, shocked she could get anything past the tightness in her throat.

  “Right,” James said, smiling at her. “I think it... says something that around you I feel like a bumbling teenager,” he said, snickering. “This is supposed to be my thing. I'm the talker. The schmoozer. That's why I have the job I have. I'm good at having the words.” He squeezed her hands tighter. “Look, it's like this... I feel like I am the best version of myself around you. A more... real version of myself.”

  “Are you saying I make you... want to be
a better man?” she mocked.

  “Shut up, will you?” James said, rolling his eyes.

  “Yeah... I think it's time to look for a new job. You've obviously lost your touch. I should be charmed out of my socks by now, shouldn't I? I mean...”

  “I love you,” he broke in, watching her mouth fall slightly open. “Well... that shut you up,” he laughed. “Shouldn't your socks be off right about now?”

  Emily closed her mouth, letting her hands drop from his and taking a much needed step backward. “That is only charming if it isn't a line. Or a ploy.”

  “A ploy to what?” James asked. “Get you into bed? I don't need lines for that. Want me to prove that?” he asked, stepping closer.

  “No,” she said, slamming a hand on his chest. “I think you need to clarify what you mean by that.”

  “By what? By I love you? It's a pretty self explanatory phrase isn't it?” he asked, reaching up and taking her chin in his hand. “But okay. If you need it...”

  “I do,” she said, feeling her heart beating too quickly in her chest. Like it was trying to get free.

  “I love you because of who you are. Stubborn and snarky. Intelligent but emotionally crippled. I love your smart mouth and your loyalty to your friends. And your ambition and devotion to this place. I love the way you put me in my place and the way you kiss me like you might never get the chance to again. Every time. You're a ridiculous drunk and have a little bit of a sugar problem. I have no illusions. You're a royal pain in my ass but there's no one else in the world I would rather be trapped in a snowstorm with. Or share a bed with. I love you without expectations. Without my ego. If you tell me that all this will ever be is me loving you from afar, that you could never love someone like...”

  “Shut up,” she said, shaking her head. “Shut up.” She moved forward, leaning in close and kissing him softly, tentatively, because it meant more this time. It meant everything. “I love you too.”

  Epilogue

  “I cant believe this is the last time I will see the room like this,” Emily said, leaning back into James' chest on the worn blue sofa. The decorator would be there in the morning, the painters in the afternoon. The bookshelves would be emptied, the books stored in the stable until they could move them back in. The art on the walls would... well, they would be in a dumpster. Burned in a bonfire of ugliness. Something.