Chapter Four
“Michael, what were you thinking?” Amber clutched the dishtowel in both fists. Then she swallowed a near-hysterical laugh.
Just look at her—one step away from wringing her hands like some cartoon damsel in distress.
As if he thought she might fall apart before his eyes, Michael headed across the room toward her. “Deep breath, Amber.”
“Deep breath? I’m lucky I can breathe at all.” Partly because you’re two feet away from me. She dropped the towel on the counter. “Do you know what you’ve done?”
“Yeah. Gotten you off the hook for that thing Lyssa talked about. You looked two seconds away from a panic attack.”
So much for believing she’d appeared calm and rational while working out the perfect rebuttals for her sister’s arguments. Why did Michael have to see the truth? Why did he have to make everything worse?
She refused to think about the little thrill running through her at knowing he’d come to her rescue. “What does it matter how I looked? Now you’ve gotten Lyssa stuck on another track. The one about us being a couple.”
“I’m not sure she actually fell for that story.”
She rolled her eyes. Poor man. “You saw her. Nick could barely get her out the door. I had to promise you’d be coming along to my parents’ house for dinner.” At that reminder, he had the grace to look ashamed about his lie. Or maybe uncomfortable, as if reality had hit him squarely between the eyes. Those beautiful dark eyes.
Go away, Michael. Don’t look so good, so mouthwateringly tempting. Don’t stand right here when you’re so far out of my reach.
Hands shaking, she turned and began putting their breakfast dishes in the dishwasher. Work would keep her mind off Michael. Yeah, and on this Christmas morning snowmen would fly.
Lyssa had wanted to help clear up, but Amber had insisted she could handle it. It was everything else she couldn’t manage. Hearing about the Snow Ball Queen nomination had been bad enough. But now, having Michael say they were together?
So much for not thinking of him. “Oh, Lyssa believed you, all right. You just won’t believe what you’re in for.”
“Such as?”
“My family is big on togetherness. And when there’s someone…important in any of our lives, that someone becomes part of the family.” That was an understatement…her family took in those someones as though they were long-lost relatives. “We’re doomed.”
He laughed. “Hey. No worries.” He touched her arm. She started, nearly losing her grip on a dinner plate. “We’ll put on a good show.”
She almost gave herself whiplash turning to stare at him. “What kind of show?”
“We’ll pretend we’re a couple. As long as you don’t jump every time I come near you, the way you did just now, we’ll be fine.”
That little jump was nothing compared to the happy-dance going on inside her. What a fool. Yet, already visions sweeter than sugarplums were scrolling through her mind, scenes of her holiday afternoon filled with gifts. Michael’s hand in hers. Michael’s arm around her waist. Michael holding her close as—
“I’m sure we’ll manage to get through one dinner.”
What? She blinked. “One dinner? You think that’s all it will be?” She gestured with the plate she held. “That’s about as likely as my making this sail across the room.”
“No throwing the dishes. I get enough of that at my dad’s house. What’s the big deal? So, it’s one afternoon. We’ll handle it.”
“You’ve already talked to Lyssa and Nick about dinner out and skiing.”
He shrugged. “All right, that makes sense. Nick’s my best friend. As Lyssa put it, I’d make time for those things. Other than that, just tell everyone I need to hole up here at the lodge because I’ve got a lot of work to do. Which I have.”
All traces of amusement vanished. He suddenly looked grim. Abruptly, he returned to the table. What had changed his mood so quickly?
“Besides,” he added, “I’m only here for a week.”
Talk about grim. One short week… When would she see him again? And why did she care? Despite his whopper of a white lie, they weren’t “together.”
“You’re here at the busiest time of year in Snowflake Valley,” she explained. “And my family is involved in everything. Where I go, they’ll expect you to go. Just like Lyssa and Nick. He’s only here through New Year’s, too.”
He shrugged. “You’ll figure out something to tell them when I’m not around.”
“Me?”
“Yeah. As you said, they’re your family. When you get right down to it, if you hadn’t been staying here, none of this could have happened. And now that we’re on the subject…” He paused. Her fingers locked onto a handful of silverware. The silence went on so long, she could hear Penny’s soft cooing from the playpen. Finally, he said, “You owe me, Amber.”
“What? How do you figure that?”
“I did you a favor and got you out of that ball. Besides, I’m your boss and this is my lodge. Now tell me why you moved in here.”
She stared at him, her mind racing. He stared back at her, unblinking. Did he hope a mind-meld would make her reveal the truth? Lots of luck with that.
But another long silence did the job for him, pushing her into speech. “You said you didn’t mind if I stayed here.”
“I don’t.”
“You said yourself it was better to have the lodge occupied some of the time.”
“It is.”
“Then what does it matter why I’m here?” Even as she asked the question, she knew it did matter. She was stalling, only because she didn’t want to tell Michael what had really brought her to the lodge.
Sighing, she dropped the silverware into the caddy and closed the dishwasher door. “I told you, I need a place to stay for a few days.”
“And you didn’t want to ask your family.”
“Right.” His steady gaze told her he wouldn’t let this go. “They…love me.”
He raised his eyebrows. “And that’s the problem?”
“Yes. Well, part of it.” The biggest part. But how could she explain that to him? “Until my younger sisters and brothers were born, I was always Lyssa and Callie’s baby sister. The one they had to save.” She flushed. “They talked me out of stage fright before my kindergarten graduation ceremony. Tutored me through every grade of elementary school math. Rescued me from schoolyard bullies.”
“And you relied on them.”
She grimaced. “Yes, I relied on them. I was too young to know any better. But even now, even when I don’t ask for help, they come to my rescue.” Just the memories of those times made her more determined to be independent.
“But you want to stand on your own.”
She stared. “Hey, who’s telling this story, anyhow?” Her laugh sounded shaky.
“You are. And you’re getting to the part where you tell me why you’re here.”
The laughter died in her throat. Suddenly needing support, she rested one hip against the kitchen island. Avoiding his eyes, she smoothed the edges of the woven placemats she had stacked there. “The plain and simple truth is, the electricity in my apartment was turned off.”
“Because…”
No, he wouldn’t quit until she had confessed all. “Because I couldn’t pay my bill.”
“That doesn’t happen to first-time offenders.”
She flinched. He thought she was a criminal? Or maybe she was being too sensitive. She raised her chin and met his gaze. “It wasn’t the first time,” she admitted. “But the other times, I was able to make payments in the grace period, and they never shut off the service.”
“What happened this time?”
His suddenly softer tone made her wince. She didn’t want pity. But maybe she was overreacting again. It wasn’t like she didn’t hear questions from anyone else. Her family had plenty of them, too, especially when she got herself caught in a dilemma and they wanted to help her out.
Except maybe her instincts were on-target. Maybe his concern came from something more—from the thought she wasn’t an employee he could trust. “I didn’t do anything wrong. I just loaned some money to a friend, and he hasn’t paid me back.”
“He?”
Unknowingly, Michael had jumped on the last point she wanted to discuss—the fact she had let another man take advantage of her. “Yes, he. Man, woman…that definitely doesn’t matter. He’s a friend, and he needed the money for his family. How could I refuse, especially when it’s Christmastime?”
“How could you have given him a loan,” he countered, “when you had bills of your own to pay?”
“I would have been able to handle the bills…if he had paid me back on time. He promised he would return the money before the holidays.”
“According to my calendar, those days have come and gone.”
“Yes, I know. And here it is, Christmas Day. You don’t need to remind me. He’ll pay me back. When he can.”
“You took his word on trust?”
He’d asked the question mildly, but still, she cringed. It was exactly what her family would have pointed out to her. Especially Callie and Lyssa.
You’re too softhearted, Amber.
You need to look out for yourself, not worry about everyone else.
And of course, she agreed with them, especially now that she had Penny to care for. Still, she also had a heart, even if it got her into trouble—something Michael didn’t need to know. “I prefer to think of what I did as giving a friend the benefit of the doubt.”
“Meanwhile, what are you going to do?”
She shrugged and forced herself to say lightly, “Hold out hope for peace on Earth and goodwill from my fellow man.”
“Including your employer?”
He hadn’t gotten the sarcasm. She didn’t want help from anyone. And yet, relief rushed through her. “Are you offering goodwill?” She would never take a loan from Michael, not after the admissions she had just made. But he was her boss. And at this point, to keep her family in the dark about her situation, she would gratefully accept the same Christmas bonus he probably gave to all his employees.
He smiled. “There’s already something extra coming in your next direct deposit. And, of course, you’re welcome to stay here until you get things straightened out.”
“Thank you,” she said, truly grateful for the additional pay…and much happier than she should have been about her chance to be with him.
“The lodge is definitely big enough,” he went on. “We’ll go our separate ways.”
“After Christmas dinner with my family.”
“After Christmas dinner,” he agreed. “Except for meals here, too, we shouldn’t run into each other at all. And I’ll have the solitude I came looking for…to get some work done.” Again, that grim expression crossed his face.
There went her happiness factor, too.
Maybe she should have mentioned the quiet she’d promised didn’t come with a guarantee.
…
True to her word, Amber had left him alone for the rest of the morning. Between their late breakfast with Nick and Lyssa and the upcoming Christmas dinner at her folks’ house, they had agreed to skip lunch. Once or twice, he had wandered into the kitchen to grab a cup of coffee. He didn’t see any sign of her or the baby.
Not that he’d been looking.
By the time he had arrived in Snowflake Valley last night, it had been too late to get to the store. Normally, he’d have emailed Amber and asked her to pick up whatever groceries he’d need. But this time he hadn’t come with guests. And he’d somehow managed to keep from reneging on his agreement with himself, the one that said he wouldn’t see her at all this trip.
So much for that plan.
He had spent the hours in his office trying not to think about her. Wanting not to think about her. Not much luck with that, either. What a fool. He had plenty of ways to distract himself. To keep busy. He glared at the equipment spread out on his desk.
“Ooh, watch out, Michael.” Her voice rang out from the office doorway. “Your face might freeze that way. Right, Penny?”
He grabbed the tilting, not-quite-empty coffee mug before it could hit his laptop.
“Sorry,” she said in a much quieter voice. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Served him right for getting so wrapped up in thoughts of her. The vision in the doorway looked even better than the one in his mind. Amber held a bundle it wouldn’t take a genius to know was her blanket-wrapped baby. Above the bundle, her blue eyes sparkled. Her cheeks were pink, probably since she already wore her heavy knitted jacket. A red woolen hat made her hair look more gold than brown.
Why had he ever thought Snowflake Valley would be the perfect place to escape from his family? Would he have come to the lodge if he’d known he would find Amber and Penny here?
“Did any of your coffee spill?” she asked.
“No. I might have been better off if it had. Sometimes frying all this equipment seems like the best thing for it.”
She laughed. “That’s a heck of an attitude, considering you own an electronics company.”
“Do I? Or does it own me? I have no idea what you’ve been up to all morning.” Great. Why not just come out and tell her you missed her? Quickly, he gestured at the desktop. “But I’ve been chained to the desk here. Checking preliminary year-end sales reports. Reviewing profit-and-loss statements. Shuffling all the other paperwork that goes along with owning a business—even if that paper’s mostly electronic now, too.” Either way, it was work he would gladly have done without.
Same for the holidays. He had tried telling that to Amber, and she had called him Scrooge. He could handle that. But he hated this time of year, both for all the administrative headaches he had to deal with and for the stress hangovers he had to fight after the battles at his family’s get-togethers.
“But you’re the boss,” she said. “You should have people doing all that for you.”
“Try telling that to my accountant.” He laughed shortly. “Actually, it is part of my job. CEO’s get some perks, including the right to delegate, but they don’t get to pass the buck completely.”
“I thought you loved your job. You always said you did.”
“Good memory.”
Too good. It went along with everything else…good about her.
Whenever he’d brought associates to the lodge, Amber had stayed on-site to cook for him and his guests. Seems like those business meetings had occurred more and more often as the year went on. He’d told himself dissatisfaction over the job drove him here. But lately, he’d begun to question that.
In all his conversations with Amber, he had gotten to know her, probably better than he should have. He’d run off at the mouth too much then, too. But she’d been easy to talk to, open, sincere, fun. And though she probably didn’t know it, her face usually gave away her emotions.
Like the concern he was seeing there now. Maybe that’s what prodded him to go on. “I did love the job. Once.” He had thought it would fill his life. And it did, just not the way he’d planned. “I didn’t think I’d get reduced to this much of a paper-pusher,” he added.
And that’s all he’d say. Not the part about being bored. Or feeling disillusioned. And definitely not the part about his fear. The fear that ate at him on a daily basis. The understanding that if he didn’t have the work he loved, he had nothing.
He nudged the laptop closed and grabbed his cell phone. “You two ready to go?”
Nodding, she adjusted Penny’s blanket. “I can’t wait. I’m hungry for a big turkey dinner and all the trimmings, plus dessert. What could be better?” No mention of the roles they would have to play. Before he could remind her, she added, “And please don’t say Bah, humbug again. Those are all things that make Christmas so special.”
“Not my Christmas.”
Dang. Too late to swallow those words. Thinking about his own family, his job, his lack of interest in the work…that’s all he’d needed to prime his irritation. At himself. But he’d taken the feeling out on Amber. Because in spite of her glowing expression, her talk of Christmas had triggered something dark inside him—the knowledge that he had no memories of ever celebrating a holiday the way she had.
Take this year’s aborted attempt, for example. He never should have gone to his dad’s house.
He never should have agreed to let Amber stay here.
She shook her head. Here it came, the blasting he deserved for snapping at her.
“Well,” she said softly, “why don’t we change things up? We’ll make today your chance to see what a real Christmas is like.”