16. Jared
JARED
Once conversations were done, they should stay in the air where they belonged.
They should fizzle away and cease their existence.
Instead, these conversations became unwanted recordings in the studio of my mind, playing over and over and over and over and over and over….
I’d kissed Lacie. Good and long and hard, just like I’d always wanted to.
And she hadn’t pulled away. She hadn’t shown any kind of reluctance when I’d confessed my feelings. If anything, she’d seemed open to the idea of the two of us together—which was the last thing I’d expected.
She’d kissed me back, even reached for me when I’d created the distance I was now determined to maintain.
Pulling away from her had been like trying to pry glued pieces apart, yet somehow, I’d managed it. And our little chat after that? The apologies, the openness?—
I paced from one end of my room—our room—at the inn to the other. Back and forth. Back and forth. The sound of water running from the bathroom made my blood race. Because Lacie was in here. In my room. Getting ready for bed.
She’d said she wished our wedding really happened. She’d said she wished the kiss was real. Hearing that she wanted me as much as I wanted her?
Those words had completely overridden my good sense and self-control.
I’d lost it. I’d lugged her away. And she’d gone right along with it.
Why had she? I’d given her a chance to say no, but she hadn’t. At least we didn’t take things any further than that, though now…
My gaze drifted to the bed. The single bed in this room we were suddenly sharing.
I stomped on any and all thoughts, wishing I could douse the heat that sprang up along with them. There would be no thoughts. Not in that regard. We couldn’t go there.
Lacie. I had to think about Lacie.
But that was just the problem. And maybe that was another reason why I refused to kiss her again—or to do anything else with her, for that matter.
I’d told her my feelings. But why had she kissed me ?
The sounds of water running stopped only to start once more, and I resumed my pacing, sorting through my racing thoughts.
Lacie had never been the rebound type. I’d been there through plenty of her breakups before, and she’d never sought me out romantically at the end of any of them, even if I’d wanted her to plenty of times.
But was that what she’d done now?
I’d dropped hints over the years about how I felt about her, how I wanted more between us. Lacie had always assumed I was teasing; she’d playfully swatted my arm or bantered and changed the subject, eventually finding someone new to date instead of me.
I hadn’t wanted to lose her friendship, and so I’d let my disappointment slide time and time again.
This time, I couldn’t have imagined the fire in her eyes. Could I?
Had Lacie been using me? Was that why she hadn’t said anything about how she felt about me in return?
I was still stumbling from the connection we’d experienced—first, in the dining room and then the heat that had raged and the blatant desire coaxing me to kiss her.
The desire wasn’t unusual; I’d experienced the compulsion plenty of times. But the fact that Lacie had been begging me to do it with nothing but the power of her glance still unsettled me.
I shook my head, and kicked my suitcase, making it knock into the bed. It couldn’t have been a rebound. She’d wanted to kiss me, too.
And now we were sharing a room? With night falling and nowhere else to go?
This was not good.
Married people shared rooms. They shared beds. But we weren’t married, not really. And even if we only slept there, how could I do that when I was still with Tia?
Was I, though?
Mom had said I’d married Lacie. Mom had said I’d broken up with Tia a year ago.
Broken up. With Tia. That meant, in this new reality, I was no longer with her.
My hands raked through my hair once more, and I stared at the fireplace that was just for show. I’d felt nothing but relief at the news, which was confirmation enough.
From the moment Tia had given me that ultimatum, it hadn’t settled well in my gut.
Her request was no quick thing. She actually expected me to let Lacie go?
Losing Lacie would be like having my arm amputated. Which was ridiculous. The limb was useful. It came in handy. I needed it to function. Not to mention how much I liked my arm.
With a groan, I sank onto the bed and tried to ignore the sounds of Lacie humming through the bathroom door. These weren’t arms; these were women I was talking about, and I couldn’t have two of those.
I didn’t want two. At least, not in a romantic way. Not only would that be weird, it was just wrong.
But I couldn’t imagine a life without Lacie. I loved her. I was very very attracted to her.
I’d agreed to come because she’d said she had two separate rooms—not this. Being so close to her in this room was a disaster waiting to happen.
Right now, Lacie was getting ready for bed.
Bed.
The thing I was sitting on. The one thing we couldn’t—shouldn’t—share.
I stared at the closed door as though things would go back to normal any minute. As though if I were to open the bathroom door right now, I’d find this all a bizarre dream after all, and she would be in her own space where she belonged.
What were we going to do? I pictured climbing into the covers with her. Keeping my distance now after the abandoned way we’d kissed was going to be a feat of epic proportions.
Her humming stopped. She stepped out of the bathroom, and I bolted to my feet as though she’d caught me doing something I shouldn’t have been.
“What’s with you?” she asked, looking adorable in a pair of pajamas laced with enough stripes to make a candy cane jealous.
Her wet hair draped down her back, and the smell of her body products wafted from the open bathroom door, stirring the desire in my chest.
She always smelled great, but this was somehow worse. Probably because I wanted to pull her to me and breathe her in as I held her.
I stared at her slim waist and curves. Her long, auburn hair, looking darker than it really was, trimmed in a straight line across her back. The shape of her face, the pout of her full, enticing lips.
And I mentally drop-kicked myself in the face. Idiot.
It wasn’t like I’d never seen her with her hair wet before. We’d gone swimming plenty of times, and I’d been at her house when she’d gotten out of the shower before.
This time, though, my body was responding to the sight, to her nearness, in a way that made me struggle. Hard core.
She hugged her arms around herself and stared at the room as though she wasn’t sure what to do. I could fully understand that problem.
The single bed shouted from its position in the room’s center.
Lacie jutted out her bottom lip. From the longing in her eyes, I knew she wanted to crawl right in and snuggle in those blankets.
I did, too. It’d been a long day, and I was ready to kick back and relax. But that wasn’t possible, not now. As intriguing as the thought of falling asleep with her burrowed in beside me was, there would be no communal snuggles here.
I fidgeted, fighting the mental images that kept popping up. Maybe it was time for a shower of my own—a cold shower. Anything to get me out of the discomfort building between us.
Lacie had cradled against me plenty of times during disaster movies and romantic comedies alike. We’d slept in the same space more than once growing up. Kids ended up spending the night when their moms hung out.
But that had been when we were little. We’d never shared a bed.
Needing purpose, I ambled past her wordlessly to the muggy bathroom that smelled like her rosewater body wash and brushed my teeth. That still didn’t cool the heat flushing through my body, so I splashed water on my face, and toweled it dry.
Nope. My blood was still raging.
I leaned against the sink, hoping some semblance of calm would come over me.
It’s Lacie, I told myself.
Tia would understand once I explained the circumstances. A magical radio played and decided to bring a snowman to life and pronounce us husband and wife. This then created an entirely new reality where I was no longer with her.
Sure, she’d believe that. And I was a medieval warrior.
I drew in a long breath before opening the bathroom door. Lacie was situated in the bed, tucked beneath the blankets, remote in hand. She was skipping through channels, chewing on her full lower lip.
Man, those lips. I’d paid them plenty of attention before, but they’d never been more tantalizing than they’d been earlier at dinner when we’d seen pictures of ourselves kissing. When we’d talked about how good it looked.
And then Lacie had gone and said she wished it was real.
Thoughts of kissing her exploded in my brain all over again. I needed to quash them—fast.
I was with Tia. No magical radio could change that fact, not when it was cemented into my brain.
Tia was the one I should be thinking of kissing. She was the one I should be thinking of, period. If reality was doing what it was supposed to, I’d have my own room right now. Lacie and I wouldn’t be contemplating how to pass the night while crammed into the same room together.
I should have tried calling Tia after arguing with Lacie, when her room key didn’t work for the first time. Maybe she had no service while on her cruise.
There was no time like the present. I considered calling her now but tapped out a text instead.
Me: Thinking of you. Hope you’re having a great time!
There. That had to count for something.
“Sorry,” Lacie said from the bed as I lowered my phone. She was thoroughly tucked in. “I kind of made myself at home. I can get up, though, if you’d rather…”
She whipped the puffy blankets from her legs.
My face heated. “No, it’s okay. I’ll just check and see if I can sleep downstairs. That couch down there looked pretty comfortable.”
“I doubt it’s for guests’ overnight use,” Lacie said.
“Then, another room.”
“I already checked, remember? They’re fully booked.”
Didn’t matter. I couldn’t stay in here with her. Not with the circumstances being what they were. Not with her looking as vulnerably alluring as she did.
I made for the door, casting a quick glance at my phone.
No response from Tia yet.
“Jare.”
“I’m going to at least check,” I said. “What are they going to do, kick me out?” I gave her a grin, before stepping into the hall in my socked feet.
Muffled sounds crept from other rooms, things like laughter and TV channels and even someone snoring. I had to say, I didn’t mind not being in that room.
Another glance at my phone told me there was still no reply. I gripped the device and traipsed down the stairs. If what my mom said was true, and in this new reality I was broken up with Tia, that would ease some of the guilt I felt, at least.
Still, I wanted some basis as to what was going on.
The reception desk was empty. Through the windows, the sky was black outside, contrasting the snow’s whiteness that much more. I meandered to the main window and paused long enough to enjoy the scene. It was definitely beautiful here, and I was glad to be inside rather than out in it.
The front room where the radio sat on the table beside other antique items was dim and quiet. Darkness was battled only by the glowing lights on the impressive Christmas tree situated in the corner. Several mounds of impeccably wrapped presents surrounded the tree, and I wondered if anything was in them or if they were only for decoration.
I took a few steps deeper into the room and stopped. The radio sat on its table. Harmless. Innocent.
“You ready to spill?” I confronted the adornment, resting my knuckled fists on the doily before it as though this were some kind of interrogation.
As though the radio would reply.
I bent lower to spew a few angry words in the radio’s direction.
“Figures,” I said. “I’m with the girl I love—and according to you and to every other inanimate object in this inn—I’m married to her, but I can’t be with her.”
The radio stared back, unresponsive.
“You’re no help,” I muttered.
Movement stirred, and I jerked, suddenly alert.
The room wasn’t empty after all. Another man was in here, sitting on the very couch that I had planned on snagging, reading a book. He glanced up, but his attention quickly returned to the novel in his hands.
I fought the frustration simmering in my chest. This guy couldn’t read in his own room?
Then again, who was I to judge? At least he didn’t say anything about me talking to a freaking radio.
I stood like a dud for several seconds, staring. Wondering. I could take a seat in the armchair between the Christmas tree and the fireplace and wait for this other man to leave, but what if he never did?
How could I settle onto the couch with this other guy here?
This was worse than the situation with Lacie.
I stepped toward the table hosting the radio once more. I traced a finger down the set’s smooth sides and wondered again if everything I’d heard was true.
Lacie and Junie both seemed to believe the story.
I whipped out my phone—still no text from Tia—and pulled up Harper’s Inn’s website. After a few quick scans, I was able to find the page Lacie had mentioned, the one outlining the inn’s claims to magic.
And I read.
One of the most enchanting appeals Harper’s Inn has to offer is the magical origins of a radio as old as the inn itself. Situated in the inn’s cozy living room, a radio holds every memory the inn has faced since it turned from its humble origins as the Harper Family’s home and into a home on-the-go for other guests in 1983.
The origin story is as mystical as the reindeer who pull Santa’s sleigh. In 1920, Santa Claus himself appeared to the inn’s owner, Benjamin Harper. Ben was only a boy at the time. As the story goes, Santa apologized for neglecting to stop by the house on Christmas Eve.
In reparation for his slipup, the Jolly Man in Red offered Ben a gift of his own—a trinket he claimed to have brought from his own home and possessions—as he’d already expended all the gifts in his arsenal.
Santa presented the young Benjamin Harper with a radio he brought from his own table. Since that moment, unexplainable things began happening at the inn.
While it played briefly when it was first received, the radio hasn’t played in one hundred years, letting the story and its resulting magical influence on the guests who come to stay at the inn seep into myth and rumor.
Yet, one year the radio may spark out a jolly tune again. And while the results seem to be as fanciful as the elves who craft Santa’s toys, who knows if the radio will catch you during your next visit to Harper’s Inn and bring some magic into your life when you least expect it?
My foot bounced on the carpet, and I frowned. Magic. I liked a good fantasy novel as much as the next person and could get lost in epic sagas recreated by Hollywood, but I’d never been a die-hard fan of anything like that.
Magic wasn’t real. This was just a clever sales publicity stunt, a ruse to get people interested in visiting an inn in Middle-Of-Nowhere, Montana.
The man was still lost in his book—on my preferred nighttime arrangements.
Tia still hadn’t texted me back.
And I was still standing as though I were lost on the roadside.
I turned on my heel and headed back upstairs, not thinking until it was too late that I should have asked the man in the front room if he’d heard the radio play at all. Junie had mentioned other guests were also being dandled about like puppets snared by a new puppet master.
Who else had heard the radio play besides Lacie and me?
I approached the door to Room 9 and rolled my eyes as I patted my empty pajama pants pocket. Of course I would go and forget the key.
Then again, we only had one, and I couldn’t leave Lacie without it.
I knocked softly, disgruntled at having to wait for her to answer.
The lock clicked, and then Lacie appeared, smiling at me, looking rumpled and casual and delectable, hair down, cheeks flushed. The additional color also brought out the pink in her lips, and I shook myself.
“No luck?” She didn’t settle herself back into the bed, though the blankets were still turned down where she’d been nestled.
I entered and closed the door behind me.
“I couldn’t do it. Some guy was there reading, and I just felt weird about it. I’ll sleep in the chair.” Because uncomfortable as it was, it would be preferable to sharing a bed with her.
I made my way to the indicated piece of furniture situated in the room’s corner. It had enough padding. It would work for a few nights.
“No.” Lacie held a hand in my direction. “You take the bed.”
“It’s fine.”
“Jare.”
“I’m serious.” I added a smile, hoping it was believable. “Just don’t tell Tia we shared a room while we were here.”
Expression guilty but accepting, Lacie tucked her legs back into the blankets and propped her head against the pillows. I took the pillows from the other side of the bed, found a spare blanket in the closet, and huddled onto the chair.
Not the worst place I’d ever slept before. Not like the time I’d been stranded in the Denver airport during a snowstorm and had squatted on the indescribably unpleasant plastic seats in the waiting areas.
That had been the longest night ever.
Wordlessly, she reached for the lamp beside the bed and clicked the light off. Darkness added its own sense of silence to a situation, and that quiet hummed in the air over our heads. I stretched out my feet and leaned back in the squashy chair, attempting to find the most sleep-able position.
This was definitely going to be another long night. But apparently, I wasn’t the only person having trouble sleeping. I’d tossed on the chair for I wasn’t sure how long when Lacie’s voice tiptoed to me from across the room.