Something in the way he said that had Hope on alert. “Are you saying that you’ll be gone for New Year’s too?”
He nodded solemnly.
Hope looked over at Merry in hopes of getting a little back up in the outrage department and wanted to scream when the woman continued to eat. “Merry? Aren’t you the least bit upset that Ted is going to be gone for that long? That’s two weeks!”
Merry looked up at Hope with confusion. “It’s his job, Hope. Obviously, Mr. James must think very highly of Ted if he’s willing to work with him one-on-one over the holidays to meet this deadline.”
“But there is no deadline!” Hope yelled. “Ted, you just said that by working through the holidays you’d be ahead of schedule. Why can’t you just work like normal people who get the holidays off and finish on time?”
Ted sighed with frustration and pushed his own plate away. “I can’t keep arguing with you like this, Hope,” he snapped. “I thought that the three of us could at least have a nice dinner together here tonight, but clearly I was mistaken. I think you should leave.”
Seriously? He was kicking her out? The nerve! “Fine, you know what? That’s just…fine. Whatever.” Snapping up her jacket and purse, she stormed from the kitchen and down the hall to the elevator.
The man had nerve! She’d baked him cookies and brought him dinner – that was edible! – and she was the one who got kicked out? Well fine. Let them finish their perfectly boring little meal of crunchy macaroni and cheese all by themselves. There was a Chinese takeout place on her way home that would love her company!
Hope paced in the elevator and stormed across the lobby with the single-minded intent of just getting the hell out of Dodge. At the front door, she found it locked and slammed on the door. “Dammit!” Whirling around, she tried to see if the security guard was nearby. “Hey! Anyone around? I need to get out of here!”
No answer.
“I hate this place. I hate this place. I hate this place.” She paced back and forth and then said, “Screw it” and unlocked the door and walked out. No alarms sounded and no one came running after her. Not that it mattered. She’d pretty much tell them to take a hike and keep walking if they tried to catch her.
By the time she was back at her car, she was beyond fuming. Needing to vent a little, she walked over to Merry’s car and kicked a tire. “Ow! Stupid car. Stupid practical, boring car! You suck and your macaroni and cheese sucks and I hope you both choke on it!”
“I didn’t know that cars could make macaroni and cheese.”
Hope turned around and found Beckett standing next to her car. She was not in the mood for jokes and just glared at him.
“I know they’re called Smart cars but if they created one that could cook, I might be tempted to buy it.”
Ignoring him, she stormed around the front of her car to the driver’s side door and unlocked it.
“Hey, are you all right?” he asked, walking over and putting a hand on her arm.
Hope swiftly pulled away. “You know what? No. I’m not all right. I’m tired, I’m pissed off, I just ate the world’s worst dinner and now my toe hurts. So no, Beckett. I’m not all right.” She yanked the door open and tossed her purse inside. She was just about to climb in when he stopped her. Her eyes shot up to his.
“You’re obviously upset. Please, tell me what’s wrong?”
Leaning back against the car frame, she glared at him for a minute. She had been so annoyed with Ted and Merry that she had forgotten that she was annoyed with him too. It was on the tip of her tongue to just completely unload on him, but she decided against it. “It’s…it’s nothing. Really. I just need to go.”
“Hope,” he said softly and took a step closer. “Come on. You can talk to me.”
Could she? Right now it didn’t seem like such a good idea. “Look, I appreciate your concern but…it’s just been a bad night.”
“What happened?”
Where could she even begin?
When she remained silent, Beckett seemed to take the hint. “Okay,” he said with a small smile. “Will you be having dinner with your brother again this week?”
And just like that, she snapped. “Um…that would be a big fat no. Why? Because thanks to his jackass of a boss, he’s leaving on Wednesday to go out of town and won’t be back until after New Year’s. So that means that the world’s worst macaroni and cheese was my Christmas dinner with my brother. That’s it. Bad, crunchy, undercooked, dry mac and cheese. Banner holiday for me!” she added sarcastically. “And then, as if the food wasn’t bad enough, he threw me out!”
“What? Why would he do that?”
“You want to know why?” Hope was on a roll now. “It’s this place. There is something about this…this…place,” she spat, “that just brings out the worst in me. I can’t even explain it. I just come here and it makes me mad!”
“You can’t blame the building for ruining your dinner,” he said logically.
“No, I blame the dinner for ruining dinner,” she said, “but I just…I just can’t come back here anymore.”
“I don’t understand.”
Hope rolled her eyes. “What does this James guy do? Does he brainwash all of you? Is that it?”
“What…?”
“You all seem to be overworked, underpaid, you have to work holidays and on top of that, he fired Jerome!”
“Who?”
“The security guard. Older guy. Worked here until about a week ago? Any of this ringing a bell?” At that moment, Hope wasn’t really sure why she was getting so snippy with him, but in all fairness, he wanted to know what was bothering her.
He gave a curt nod. “And this upsets you?”
“Yes it upsets me! I hate seeing people treated unfairly! I hate that the one time of year that I desperately need my brother, he isn’t going to be there and I’m going to be all alone! You may not mind not being around your family, but it bothers me!” She felt tears starting to well in her eyes and quickly turned away.
“Isn’t there anyone else you could spend Christmas with?” he asked quietly. “Some friends maybe?”
The thought had been swirling around in her head ever since Ted broke the news to her of his newfound holiday work schedule. It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world but Hope wasn’t sure how to go about inviting herself to someone’s house for Christmas. “I don’t know,” she muttered. “Maybe.” She needed to leave, to get out of here before she did something completely stupid like ask Beckett to spend Christmas with her.
Or hug her.
Not a good thing.
He stood there in front of her, looking all kinds of handsome. His dark hair slightly mussed, a gray wool scarf around his neck and a black wool jacket covering his muscular build. It wasn’t fair that he could look so good all the damn time, so calm and completely in control, when her life was spinning in the complete opposite direction.
“I…I really need to go,” she said finally and then forced herself to look up and meet his eyes. Damn. They were so dark, so intense and it would be so easy to just look into them forever. A sigh escaped before she could stop it. “Merry Christmas, Beckett,” she said with a bit of a forced smile.
“You too, Hope.”
“And I guess a Happy New Year, too,” she added and turned to climb into her car when his hand on her arm stopped her again. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask what he wanted, but suddenly his lips were on hers and Hope had to remember how to breathe.
His lips were gentle at first but once she seemed to overcome her shock and relax, Beckett’s hands came up and cupped her face, caressed her cheeks. Hope sighed as her own hands crept up and clutched the front of his coat. It was so unexpected, such a complete surprise to her that she needed to keep herself anchored to something or her knees would surely give out and she’d be in a puddle on the ground.
After Beckett seemed satisfied with introducing himself to her through his kiss, he deepened it. His hand traveled up and into the riotous curl
s on her head as he moved closer to her. The feel of his lean body pressed up against hers sent Hope’s own into overdrive. Over and over he slanted his lips over hers, his tongue teased hers, his breath mingled with hers. It was glorious and all-consuming and yet all she could do was purr against him.
Long moments later when Beckett finally lifted his head from hers, he stared down into her face. “Happy New Year, Hope,” he said, his voice slightly rough and gravelly. His hand trailed down her cheek to her chin before he let her go and stepped back.
And walked away.
Chapter Three
On Wednesday afternoon, Hope was on the road to Tennessee. Deciding to drop out of her self-imposed pity-party, she called her college roommate Tara, and managed an invitation to come to Knoxville for the holidays. It wasn’t a horrible plan but it still wasn’t what Hope wanted most for Christmas.
She wanted to have her family together.
Although, if she were completely honest with herself, she was never going to have that again. It was pointless to hold on to a dream that was never going to be a reality. Now there was a depressing thought. Deciding to let that go, a quick scan through the radio stations had her finding the one that only played Christmas music.
For a hundred miles, Hope sang off-key to some of her favorite holiday songs and actually started to feel better about her circumstances. It was obvious that Ted was not going to be the family support that she longed for. The more she thought about it, the more Hope realized that the closeness that she and her brother shared had slowly faded away over the years. They just didn’t notice it because they were busy with their own lives and still had their parents around to bring them back every once in a while.
“And we’re back to depressed,” she sighed as the miles of highway kept going by. The sky was gray and the temperatures weren’t favorable. With any luck, she’d be through the mountains and across the North Carolina-Tennessee line before anything changed or worsened. The last thing she needed was to have to do this drive in the snow. As it was, she had chosen to leave so many days before Christmas to avoid as much traffic as possible. With a hotel reservation waiting for her over the state line, even if it did start to snow, Hope was confident that she’d have a place to rest for the night and not have to rush to get to Tara’s.
An hour later, her cell phone rang and she looked at it as if it were a foreign object. All of her clients knew of her travel plans and it was rare for her to get social calls. She tapped the screen on her dashboard and saw that it was Merry.
And groaned.
It was highly unusual for Merry to call her, especially in the middle of the day, so Hope’s curiosity got the better of her and she answered. “Hey, Merry!” she said with a cheeriness she did not feel. “What can I do for you?”
“Hope? Hope, can you hear me?” Merry’s voice was shaky and she sounded a little bit…off. Hope was instantly alarmed.
“Merry? What’s the matter? What’s going on?”
“Hope, I can’t get Ted on the phone.” Her voice faded out and she coughed a few times before speaking again. “I…I don’t know how to get in touch with him. Do you have another number for him?”
“Unfortunately, I don’t. Why? What’s happened? Are you all right?”
“I had an accident,” she sobbed. “My car is a mess and…and…I’m in so much pain.”
“Are you at the hospital? Merry, please tell me that you’re at the hospital!”
“I…I’m waiting for the ambulance. I’m scared, Hope. I need Ted. Please! You have to get in touch with Ted!”
“Okay, okay…I haven’t talked to him since we had dinner Saturday night. I don’t know where exactly he was going. I’ll keep calling him.”
“No!” Merry cried. “You have to find out where he is! You have to get him to come home. Please, Hope. Please! I need him here with me!”
Hope was able to hear the sound of an ambulance siren in the background. “Merry, I want you to listen to me. I want you to hang up and let the paramedics take care of you.”
“But…but…Ted! I need Ted! Promise me! Promise me, Hope, that you’re going to find him and get him here!”
“I promise. I’m going to hang up and find him right now and get him to you as soon as possible. Okay?”
“Thank you. Thank you, Hope!” Merry cried and then the line went dead.
The only problem with that promise was the fact that Hope was driving down I-40 and had no idea where her brother was. Ted had mentioned that G.B. James’ place was in the mountains but…what mountains? Where? “This is a nightmare.” Eyes back on the road, Hope waited until she saw a sign for a rest area and pulled over. If she was going to have to search and make calls to find out where exactly Ted was, she needed to be off the road to do it.
“Good thing I’m not in a rush,” she said to herself as she pulled into a large parking lot and found a place to park. “Okay, where to start?” The obvious choice was with Ted himself. She called and the phone went directly to voicemail. That usually meant that his phone was off so texting him would be of no use. Next was to call his office. It was true that he was supposed to be leaving today to head out of town, but that didn’t mean that he’d already left or that someone there couldn’t reach him.
“James Enterprises. How may I direct your call?” the operator asked.
Good question. “Yes, um…hi. This is Hope Cooper. My brother Ted works up on the eleventh floor…something with…financing.” She cursed herself. What kind of person didn’t know what department their brother worked in? “It’s very important that I reach him. Can you…?”
“Hold please.”
“Dammit!” The world’s worst music immediately began to play and Hope prayed that someone would answer soon.
“You’ve reached the desk of Theodore Cooper. I’ll be away from my desk until after January second. Please direct all your inquiries to…”
Hope quickly reached into her purse and found a piece of paper and pen and wrote down the number just in case she got disconnected. Luckily, with a quick press of the number five, her call was being transferred.
More bad music.
“This is Diane Charles, how may I help you?”
Oh, thank God, Hope sighed. “Hi. Diane. Um…this is Hope Cooper. Ted’s sister. I was wondering…”
“Oh, Hope! We absolutely loved your cookies. Thank you so much! I have to say, I was never one for baking so I always either bought store-made cookies or got one of those cookie dough logs where you just cut and throw them on a baking sheet!” She laughed. “Sometimes I would just eat the dough raw! I know you’re not supposed to but, hey, who are we kidding? It’s delicious! Am I right?”
“Diane…”
“Those brownie thins were to die for! Honestly, I thought I would die if we ran out of them!” She laughed again. “Don’t tell Ted but…I went and took the rest of them and hid them in my drawer! I am just about out of them so if you have any extras that you want to share, feel free to send them my way!”
“Yeah, yeah…I’ll see. Listen, I need to…”
“Do you bake them all from scratch or are some of them from a box mix? I mean, there’s nothing wrong with a box mix. My mom uses them for all of our baking but I would imagine for all of the great things you baked, that it’s probably something more than that. Right? Is there a trick to getting the right ingredients? You know, are there better brands of flour to use? Or a certain type of baking pan that’s better than others? I was thinking…”
“Diane!” Hope snapped, her patience gone. “I promise that I will make you a hundred brownie thins for the New Year if you can just help me for a minute. Okay?”
“Um…sure,” she said hesitantly.
“I can’t get Ted on the phone. Actually, I think his phone is off. Is he in the office today by chance?”
“No. He and Mr. James left already.”
“Okay. Great. Do you have a way to reach them?”
“You mean by phone?”
; Seriously? This woman was in the finance department and she was asking these kinds of questions? “Um…yeah. Or any other way that we can reach them actually. There’s an emergency. Ted’s fiancée…”
“Merry?”
“Yes, yes. Merry. She’s been in an accident. She drives one of those Smart cars. They’re very small and she says that it’s totaled.”
“Oh, my…”
“When I hung up with her, the paramedics were just arriving. It’s very important that I get in touch with Ted. Please. Can you help me?”
Diane was silent for a moment. “Mr. James said not to bother them unless it was important.”
“And this clearly is,” Hope prompted.
“Let me get your number, Hope, and I’ll try and get them on the phone and one of us will get back to you.”
“Thank you! Thank you, Diane! And believe me, I will get those brownie thins to you after the holidays. You have my word.” Hope gave her the phone number, hung up and prepared to wait. As much as she wasn’t a fan of Merry’s, she certainly didn’t wish the woman any harm. Hopefully, Diane would be able to reach Ted and he’d be able to go and comfort his fiancée and then meet up with his boss later.
Or not at all.
And wouldn’t that just solve everyone’s problems?
Well, not Mr. James’, but that didn’t really matter to Hope. As far she was concerned, Mr. G.B. James could go to hell. Ha! The only thing that would make that statement feel even better was if she ever had the opportunity to tell him that to his stupid face! Yeah, that’s right. Stupid. Face. Hey, every once in a while her inner twelve year old needed to come out and play. “Sue me,” she grumbled and stared at the phone in hand.
“Come on, Ted,” she said, as if willing the phone to hear her. “Just call me so I can relay the message and get back on the road. I’ll be quick, I promise.”
Ten minutes later, her phone was still silent. To pass the time, Hope climbed out of the car and walked into the rest area pavilion and to search for a vending machine. Nothing helped pass the time like a candy bar or a bag of pretzels. Sizing up her options, she eventually made her selection and walked back out to her car.
Stranded: A Winter Romance Duet Page 5