One Winter's Sunset: The Christmas Baby Surprise / Marry Me under the Mistletoe / Snowflakes and Silver Linings

Joe laughed. “Did I just hear the great and busy Oz say the word vacation?”

“It won’t be a long one, but yes, I’m taking some time off. I’m working on a project here and could use an extra set of hands.” Cole explained about the inn and its owner’s financial struggles. “Plus, Em’s here.”

“She is? How’s that going?”

“Not so well. I’m just trying—” he sighed, pressed a finger to his temple “—to give us one more chance. I’m hoping that she sees my being here as being committed to her, to us.”

“I always thought you two were going to live a long and happy life together,” Joe said.

“Yeah, me too.” Cole sighed again.

His friend thought for a second. “Give me a couple days to tie up the loose ends I have here, and then I’ll join you. It’ll be good to catch up. How long has it been?”

“Too long,” Cole said. “Far too long.”

He hung up with Joe, then put his phone away and surveyed the work ahead of him. There was plenty to do, for sure. His gaze wandered to the second-floor bedroom where Emily was staying. The room was only twenty feet or so away, but it might as well have been on the moon.

Earlier, in the kitchen, there’d been a moment, a split second, really, where he’d thought maybe he could see a bridge back to them. Somehow, he needed to build more of those moments. One on top of another, and the bridge would connect them again. He hoped.

He headed back into the house and found Emily in the kitchen, opening a package of saltines. She’d changed into a pair of jeans and a fitted T-shirt. The clothes outlined her hourglass shape, the narrow valley of her waist, the tight curve of her rear end, and sent a roar of desire through him. Damn, he’d missed her. In a hundred different ways.

“Hey, Emily,” he said.

She turned around, a saltine in her hand. “Cole.”

There was no emotion in that syllable, nothing that he could read and pinpoint as a clue to how she felt about him. He cleared his throat, took a step closer.

“I was thinking of taking a break for lunch,” he said. “Would you like to go into town with me? I need to get some supplies, too.”

“Sorry, no. I’m, uh, working on something.”

“Working on something? What?”

“Something personal,” she said, and turned toward the cabinet to get a glass.

The door had shut between them, and she had no intentions of opening it—that much was clear. Cole should cut his losses, go back to New York and bury himself in work. Accept the divorce and move on, like she had.

Then why did he stay in the kitchen like a lovelorn teenager? He grabbed a glass of water that he didn’t want, hoping Emily would talk to him. Instead, she gathered her crackers and her drink and headed for the hall. “Em?”

She turned back. “Yeah?”

“Is there any chance?”

The question hung in the sunny kitchen for a long moment. Emily’s green eyes met his, and for a second, hope leaped in his chest. She shook her head and lowered her gaze. “No, Cole, there isn’t.”

Then she brushed by him and out of the room, leaving Cole more alone than he could ever remember feeling.

CHAPTER FOUR

TWO FRIENDLY, HAPPY emails greeted Emily when she got back to her room. Andrea and Casey, both thrilled to hear from her and chock-full of their own news. Casey, the more dramatic of the three, was full of boisterous stories about her life, while Andrea talked about working at her family shop during tough economic times. They were both surprised to hear the inn was up for sale, and both said they’d try to make it out there before the holidays. “I’d love to give the place one more goodbye,” Casey wrote, “and give you a great big hug, too. It’ll be great to see you all and maybe raise a toast to Melissa. We’ll stand out on the dock and give her a proper goodbye.”

Emily wrote back, telling them that sounded like a fabulous idea, and encouraging her friends to arrive as soon as possible. Her hands hovered over the keyboard while she debated how much to tell them. “Things are going great with me,” she said finally, lying through her fingers. “Can’t wait to see you!” She left it on a bright, cheery note, even adding a smiley face. Then she hit Send, and tried to work on her book again.

The words wouldn’t come. After eating the saltines, her nausea had passed, and her stomach rumbled, reminding her it was lunchtime. A lunch she could have enjoyed with Cole, if she’d taken him up on his offer.

Doing so would only tempt her all over again, and the last thing she needed was to be tempted by Cole. She placed a hand on her belly and splayed her fingers against the tiny life deep inside her. “We’ll be okay, Sweet Pea. I promise.”

Carol poked her head into Emily’s room. “I made a salad for lunch. Want some?” Carol noted Emily’s hesitation, and added, “Cole left. Said he had to go to town.”

“Lunch sounds good. I was just starting to get hungry.” Emily shut the laptop’s lid, then followed Carol to the kitchen. Harper lay on the small rug in front of the back door, snarfling and twitching, probably chasing a rabbit in her doggy dreams.

Carol laid two heaping plates of spinach, strawberry and feta salad on the table. Sprinkles of roasted pecans and a raspberry vinaigrette finished off the tasty lunch. “So,” Carol said when she sat across from Emily, “when are you due?”

“When...what?” Heat rushed to Emily’s cheeks. “What are you talking about?”

“Honey, I may not be able to know how to save this place, but I know when a woman is expecting. The tea, the nausea, the saltines. Plus you just have that look about you.”

“What look?”

“That excited-slash-terrified look.” Carol grinned. “My sister had three kids, and she looked like that every time.”

Emily picked at the salad. “May 17.”

Carol’s face exploded in a smile, and she jerked out of the chair to gather Emily in a tight, warm hug. “I’m so happy for you, honey.”

“Thank you,” Emily said, and for the first time, the joy of what was coming began to infuse her. Sharing the news made it real, somehow, and that allowed her to imagine the future with the child she had always wanted.

A child Cole hadn’t wanted.

But that didn’t matter. She and Cole were over, even if he had yet to fully get the message. She was going to have this baby alone and be just fine. She’d wanted a baby almost from the day they got married. Cole had kept telling her they should wait. For what, she wasn’t even sure now. All she knew was that he found one excuse after another not to have a child.

Finally, Emily was building the family she’d dreamed of. Granted, a family without a father, but Emily had no doubt she’d more than make up for Cole’s absence.

“Cole must be over the moon about the baby,” Carol said.

Emily shook her head. “He doesn’t know. And I’m not telling him,” she added before Carol said anything. “We’ve been separated for some time now, and after I get back to New York, I think...no, I know, I’m going to file for divorce.”

“What? But then...why is he here?”

“Because Cole is the kind of man who never loses. Even when the battle isn’t his to win.” She shrugged, and cursed the tears that rushed to her eyes. “Our marriage has been over for a long time, but he won’t accept that.”

Carol’s hand covered Emily’s. “I don’t know about over, if you have that little gift growing inside you right now.”

“That night was a mistake.” Emily shook her head. “One I won’t repeat. My marriage is over, Carol. I’m just looking ahead to the future with just me and the baby.”

The doorbell sounded a happy little trill. “We can talk later,” Carol said. “Let me get the door. You stay, finish your salad. And don’t worry, I won’t say anything to Cole.”

Emily smiled up at her old friend. “Thank you.”

A minute later, Carol was back with a tall, trim, white-haired man beside her. “I’m not quite sure what all we need done around here,” she said as she walked into the room. “My home repair skills are pretty limited.”

“Seems to me like you need a little of everything.” The man’s gaze swept the kitchen, taking in the water stains on the ceiling, the dripping faucet, the worn countertops. “The house has good bones, though, and that’s what matters. You’ve got a great place here, miss.”

A shy smile curved across Carol’s face. “Oh, I’m far from a miss these days.”

The man gave her a grin that crinkled the corners of his pale blue eyes. “I disagree.”

Carol let out a little laugh. “Well, thank you, Martin.”

They were flirting, Emily realized. Something she had never seen Carol do before. Carol tore her gaze away from the man and waved toward Emily. “This is Emily, an old friend and one of the regular visitors to the Gingerbread Inn,” she said. “Emily, this is Martin Johnson. Cole hired him to do some work around here.”

Emily stood, shook Martin’s hand. Harper sat in the corner of the kitchen, her tail wagging, while she watched the exchange between the humans with curiosity in her brown eyes.

“I’m mainly a plumber, but I know how to do just about anything. That’s what comes from buying my own fixer-upper twenty years ago.” He grinned. “I’m still working on it two decades later. The carpenter’s always the one who doesn’t get time to build his own furniture.”

“I bet that drives your wife crazy,” Carol said.

“Would if I had one,” Martin said. “But my Sarah passed away, going on ten years now.”

“I’m so sorry,” Carol said. “Listen, we were just having lunch. Could I get you something to eat, and we can talk about the repairs? I’ve got leftover meat loaf in the fridge if you want a meat loaf sandwich.”

Martin’s grin widened. “I haven’t had one of those for years and years. But I hate to put you out. I’m sure you’re busy.”

Carol giggled. Actually giggled. “Oh, it’s no trouble at all. You sit, and I’ll fix the sandwich.”

Emily had finished her salad and rose to put her plate in the sink. “Nice to meet you, Martin,” she said to the handyman, then turned to Carol. “I’m going to go back to work for a little bit.”

“Okay,” Carol said. “Be sure to get out and enjoy this bright sunshine, too. It’s an absolutely gorgeous fall day.”

Emily glanced out the window. “You know, that sounds like a great idea. I think I’ll take a notebook and head down to the dock.”

“Sounds like a perfect way to spend an afternoon,” Carol said.

Martin and Carol started talking about the repairs needed at the inn. Their conversation flowed easily, with a little undercurrent of interest on both sides.

A few minutes later, Emily threw on a thick sweatshirt, then grabbed a notebook and a pen and headed outside. Cole’s rental car was nowhere to be seen. A part of her hoped he’d done what he always did—hired someone to do what needed to be done so he could go back to work. Whenever she had something on the honey-do list, Cole would pick up the phone and solve the problem. There were times when she wanted to yell at him that she didn’t want hired help. She wanted her husband to be the one to hang the pictures, move the sofa, trim the old maple tree in the backyard. Because that meant he would be home for more than a few minutes, and she’d feel like they were in this life together, not two trains running on parallel tracks that slowly diverged in opposite directions.

The lake’s water glistened under the bright sun, as if diamonds had been sprinkled across the smooth, lightly rippled surface. The same wooden bench she remembered sat at the end of the dock, weathered and gray. She sat down, drew her feet up to her chest and leaned against the armrest. The sun warmed her face and shoulders, and soon Emily was immersed in her ideas. She scribbled all over the notepad, plot twists and character details flowing as fast as her pen could put the words on the page.

It was as if a waterfall had been held back too long, she realized. Maybe that’s what it was—all those years of trying to be Cole’s wife, putting everything she wanted to do to the side so that she could keep the perfect house and the perfect life, then be the perfect wife at banquets and dinners and parties. Her self had disappeared somewhere among the gossip-filled brunches with the other wives, the afternoons spent playing another round of golf while Cole networked. She’d forgotten the ambitions she’d had when she graduated, the dreams she was going to pursue. But now here, finally, she was doing it. Taking Melissa’s advice and living her life before it was too late.

“Enjoying the day?”

Cole’s voice jerked her to attention. Her pen skittered across the page. “You scared me.”

“Sorry. You were so lost in what you were doing there, I guess you didn’t hear me clomping down the dock.”

“You never clomp, Cole.” She chuckled. “You’re a little too refined for that.”

“Oh, are you saying I’ve gotten soft in my days behind a desk?”

The word soft made her glance over at his trim body, still muscular and strong, thanks to frequent gym workouts. He’d put a thick black leather jacket over the T-shirt and jeans, giving him an almost...dangerous air. The day she’d met him, he’d been wearing a leather jacket much like this one. In an instant, she was back in time, standing on a sidewalk and apologizing for running into Cole because she’d had her nose buried in a book, reading while she’d walked to class. He’d told her she should never apologize for a good story, and as he helped her pick up her schoolbooks, they’d started talking, and it felt like they hadn’t stopped talking for a solid month. By the holiday break, she was in love with him and by the end of the school year, Cole had proposed. All because she’d seen the leather jacket and thought he was sexy, and she’d been intrigued by a man who looked like a biker but talked like a scholar.

What was she doing? Getting distracted by the man she no longer wanted?

“Mind if I share the seat?” he asked. “Grab a little break?”

“Sure.” She turned, put her feet on the dock and moved to make room on the bench for him. As soon as she did, she regretted the decision. The bench was small, and Cole was so close, it would only take a breath of movement for her thigh to be touching his.

“I got you something when I was in town,” he said, and handed her a small brown bag.

“What’s this?”

He waved at the bag. “Open it and see.”

She peeked inside the bag. A shiny wrapper with a familiar logo winked back at her. “You got me my favorite snack cakes?”

“Thought you might be craving them.”

For a second, she thought he knew she was pregnant, and she panicked. Then Cole chuckled. “If I remember right, you were always craving those things. I think we cleaned out the campus cafeteria on a weekly basis. What’d you use to say?” He leaned back, thinking. “There’s always a reason—”

“To celebrate with cake.” She took the package out of the bag. “Of course, that’s what I said when I had the metabolism of a twenty-year-old.”

Cole reached up, as if he was going to brush away the bangs on her forehead, but withdrew without touching her. She swallowed the bitter taste of disappointment. “You’re still as beautiful now as the day I met you, Emily.”

She got to her feet. “Cole—”

He reached for her hand. When Cole touched her, electricity sizzled in Emily’s veins, and her heart caught. “I’m not saying anything other than that you’re beautiful, Emily. No reason to run.”

It did look ridiculous to hurry off the dock just because Cole had complimented her. She retook her seat. “Let’s just keep this friendly, okay?”

“Sure.” If he was disappointed, he didn’t show it. He propped his feet on the railing in front of him, leaned back on the bench and tilted his face to the sun, eyes closed.

It was as if all the years of stress and long hours melted away. Cole looked younger, happier, more peaceful than she had seen him in a long time. Maybe working on the inn was doing him some good. For years, she’d worried about him having a heart attack at work because he worked too much, ate at odd hours and had more stress on his shoulders than anyone she knew.

“I met Martin,” she said, unwrapping the snack cake and taking a bite. It was heaven on her palate. “Did you hire him to do all the work around here?”

“Nope. Just to help on the things I’m not good at. I figure I’ll stay a few more days.” He opened his eyes and turned to look at her. “If that’s okay with you.”

How could she say no? He was helping Carol, and Carol desperately needed help if she was going to keep the inn running. Plus, Cole looked so relaxed, so happy, something Emily had rarely seen in him.

When the baby was born, she and Cole would have to be civil. Attend family gatherings together sometimes, or maybe just meet to talk about their child. With the baby, Emily knew Cole would never be totally out of her life. Someday, maybe she’d stop reacting when he smiled at her or touched her. Maybe.

“It’s fine, Cole. I’m just surprised you want to do it.”

“Working with my hands has made me feel...useful.” He chuckled. “I know, I know, they need me at work and that should do the same, but this is different. When I fixed those steps, I saw an immediate response to a problem. One minute they were a hazard, the next they were ready for visitors. It’s like every corner of this place is crying out for attention.”

She wanted to say that she had done that for years, and he’d never noticed. Or listened. “Maybe we should have bought a fixer-upper instead of built a house. Then you could have had projects all the time.”

“You still have that honey-do list, don’t you?”

She shook her head. “I gave it to Bob. The contractor you hired to do the renovations on the kitchen? He’s taking care of all those things while I’m gone.”

“Oh, that’s good.” He sounded disappointed.

A part of her wanted to believe that if she went back to New York right now, Cole would take up that honey-do list and insist on being home more often, being there, being with her. But the sensible part of her knew this time at the inn was a temporary reprieve. The problems in their marriage ran deeper than a remodeling project. Instead, it would be better, and smarter, to use this time together as a way to forge their future together. Their real future, not a fantasy one.

“Cole...” She paused, laying her hands in her lap, her appetite for the snack cake gone. “I think we should sell the house. I don’t need one that big, and you aren’t living there anymore and...”

“Let’s wait,” he said. “Give it some time—”

“We’ve been separated six months, and really, a divorce is just a formality at this point. The sooner we get these things settled, the faster we can move on.”

“What if I don’t want to move on?”

The pain in his voice hurt her. She had no doubt he still cared, but she knew how this would end. She’d read this same story a hundred times over the course of their marriage. “Cole, we’ve tried this. The big fight, the talk of ending it. You come back, try for a few days, then before you know it, you’re back at work and I’m in a marriage of one person. Let’s just make it official, okay? Instead of pretending that we’re ever going to be a family.”

She gathered her things and got to her feet. She started to pass by him, when Cole reached out. “Emily.”

His voice was harsh, jagged, filled with need and regret. Feelings she knew well because she’d felt them herself. She hesitated, standing on the dock under the bright November sun while the water lapped gently at the pilings, and looked down at the man she had pledged to love forever.

“I’m sorry, Cole. I really am,” she said softly, then placed a kiss on his cheek.

At the last second, Cole turned, and his mouth met hers. Heat exploded in that kiss, and Cole jerked to his feet, hauled her to his chest and tangled his hands in her hair. Her mind went blank, and her body turned on, and everything inside her melted. All the perfect little arguments she had against being with Cole disappeared and for a moment, Emily Watson was swept back into the very fairy tale she had thought stopped existing.

CHAPTER FIVE

FOR ONE LONG sweet moment, Cole’s life was perfect. Then Emily broke away from him, and stumbled back a step. “We...we can’t do that. We’re getting divorced, Cole.”

He scowled. “I know what’s going on between us.”

“Then let’s stop getting wrapped up in something that’s never going to work. We made that mistake a few months ago, and—”

“And what?”

She shook her head and backed up another step. “And it was a mistake.”

“So you’re giving up, just like that?”

Her gaze softened, and though Cole wished he read love in that look, what he really saw was sympathy. “No, Cole, I never gave up. You did that for both of us a long time ago. And now you’re doing what you always do. Fighting to win, because Cole Watson never loses at anything. Too bad you never realized that you lost me a long, long time ago.”

He stood on the dock for a long time, listening to the soft patter of her feet as she headed up the dock and toward the inn. The water winked back in the sunlight, bright and cheery. For the hundredth time, Cole wondered what the hell he was doing here and why he was trying so hard to save his marriage when his wife didn’t want him to.

The lake blurred in front of him, and his mind drifted back over a decade into the past. To a beach in Florida, a run-down motel and the happiest five days of his life. Things had been simpler then, he realized, before the company and the money and the big house, and all the things he thought would improve their life. Instead, it had cost him all he held dear.

Somehow, he needed to get back to that simple life, to the world that had once seemed to consist of just him and Emily. Then his phone started buzzing against his hip, and he knew doing that was going to be harder than he’d thought.

* * *

Emily buried herself in words for two hours that afternoon. She cracked the window, letting some of the crisp, fresh air filter past the lacy curtains and into the room. The sounds of chirping birds and the occasional whine of the table saw broke the quiet of the day. The pages flew by, as she took her characters and had them battle past the challenges in their lives, striving for success, even against impossible odds. The book was going very, very well and each new chapter she started gave Emily a little burst of energy and satisfaction. She was doing it. Finally.

She sat back in the chair and stretched. If only solving her own life problems was as easy as solving those of her fictional characters.

It didn’t help that she had complicated things herself by kissing Cole. It was as if there were two parts to her heart—the part that remembered the distance, the fights, the cold war of the past few years, and the part that remembered only the heady beginning of their relationship. The laughter, the happiness and the sex.

Okay, yes, being touched by Cole was the one part of their marriage that had never suffered. Their sex life, when they’d had one, had been phenomenal. He knew her body, knew it well, and had been a wonderful lover.

When he had been there to love her at all.

That was the real problem in their marriage. Cole’s absences, fueled by his dogged dedication to the business, meant he was never home. In the early years, she’d supported him, encouraged him to work as much as he needed, but as success began to mount and Emily thought he would finally cut back on his hours, Cole instead worked more, dedicating weekends and vacations to this new project or that customer problem. He’d poured his heart and soul into the company, leaving almost nothing of either one for their marriage.

She got to her feet, gathering her dishes from her afternoon snack and headed down to the kitchen. Carol was peeling potatoes at the table, and had a basket of fresh green beans waiting to be cleaned beside her. Emily put her dishes in the sink, then sat in the opposite chair and started twisting off the stringy ends and breaking the green beans in half, then adding them to a waiting colander. “I remember doing this when I was a little girl,” Emily said.