Chapter 20
Twenty
HOLLY
Right Call, Wrong Time
I’d been lying awake since ridiculous o’clock, hyperaware that Declan was sleeping approximately fifty feet away and trying not to think about the way he’d kissed me under the mistletoe two nights ago.
The awkwardness of yesterday’s coffee shop meeting hadn’t helped my insomnia.
We’d both worked so hard to maintain professional distance that the entire conversation had felt like a carefully choreographed dance around the obvious attraction that was making festival planning increasingly complicated.
I knew the phone call he received rattled him more than he let on, but the question I didn’t want to ask was why. Too personal, too intimate, too… everything I was trying to avoid.
My phone rang a little after eight, interrupting my attempts to not rub one out while thinking about hot lawyers and their drown-in-me blue eyes.
“Holly Winters,” I answered, not recognizing the number.
“Ms. Winters, this is Carol Pruitt from Hartwell & Associates,” said a crisp, professional voice. “I’m calling about the marketing director position you have shown interest in on our website. Are you free to chat?”
Chat?
My blood spiked unnaturally hot as it sank in. Chicago. Hartwell & Associates was an upcoming PR firm that was hitting the trendy niche, in ways that made my previous firm wildly envious. Everyone at my old firm threw their resumés at it, just to see what would happen.
“Yes, of course,” I said, sitting up straighter in my ancient childhood bed. “Thank you for calling.”
The call was the lifeline I’d been waiting for.
A chance to reclaim the career that Patricia so casually torpedoed when she fired me only a couple of weeks ago.
I swung my legs out of bed, pacing the small rectangle of my bedroom rug as Carol Pruitt described a role that sounded like it had been written specifically for me—dynamic, creative, focused on building community engagement for national brands.
It was everything I had been trying to do at my old job before they decided “safe and boring” was a better marketing strategy.
“Your portfolio is impressive, Ms. Winters,” Carol continued, her voice all business. “Particularly the campaign you developed for the Lakeside Arts Festival. It showed a real knack for grassroots promotion.”
“Thank you,” I managed, my voice steadier than I felt. “I’m very proud of that work.”
“We’d like to schedule a formal video interview. Would you be available on December 23rd at 9 AM? I realize it’s right before Christmas, but Ed really wants to get this squared away.”
My heart thumped. The last day of the festival. “Yes,” I said without missing a beat. “That sounds perfect.”
“Wonderful,” Carol said. I could practically see her beam over the airwaves. “And between you and me,” she dropped her voice conspiratorially, “Ed has tailored this position to meet your expertise. You’re a shoo-in.”
I blinked. “Oh, that’s great,” I said, wondering what I did to deserve this luck.
“Speak to you soon!” Carol chirped, and we hung up.
I placed my phone on the dresser and peeked around the edge of the curtain at Declan’s house. Back to Chicago. If I got the job. That I was a shoo-in for.
Everything I’d thought I wanted, dangling at exactly the moment when staying in Everdale Falls was starting to feel like a possibility for reasons that had nothing to do with career advancement and everything to do with the man currently putting a bag into his car in the driveway next door.
I frowned. He was wearing a navy wool coat that made his shoulders look even broader than usual, and his hair was slightly messy in the way that suggested he’d also had trouble sleeping.
The sight of him preparing to leave sent an unexpected spike of panic through my chest. The idea of him driving away felt like losing something I wasn’t ready to give up.
Before I could talk myself out of it, I banged on the window to get his attention. He looked up with a frown. I held my hand up and he nodded.
I pulled on jeans and a sweater in record time and flew down the stairs in my Christmas socked feet.
“Holly?” my mother called from the kitchen. “Is everything okay?”
“Fine!” I called back, grabbing my boots and coat from the mudroom. “Just getting some fresh air!”
Fresh air. As if my urgent need to stop him from leaving had anything to do with the freezing, piney, snowy Vermont air.
I made it outside just as Declan was closing the driver’s side door, and the sight of him actually leaving, that he wasn’t waiting for me, made me panic in ways that probably weren’t entirely rational.
“Wait!” I called out, jogging across the snowy driveways in boots I hadn’t bothered to lace properly. “Where are you going?”
Declan lowered the window. “It’s fucking freezing. Get in.”
I clambered into the passenger side and immediately felt the warmth from the heating blowing onto my face.
“My parents asked me to look at a property about an hour north,” Declan explained, studying my face with the kind of careful attention that suggested my panic had been more obvious than I’d intended.
“They’re considering a second home for vacations, and they want someone to assess the structural integrity before they make an offer. ”
A property an hour north. Relief flooded through me, followed immediately by embarrassment that I’d reacted so strongly to what was obviously a routine family errand.
“That sounds nice,” I said, realizing how lame that sounded.
“Hmm. Are you okay?”
No. Everything was not okay. I’d just been offered an interview for my dream job back in Chicago, I was developing serious feelings for someone whose own life was in transition, and I was apparently so emotionally invested in his whereabouts that I’d run outside in a panic at the sight of him leaving.
But admitting any of that would require acknowledging that our careful professional distance was a complete fiction, and I wasn’t ready for that conversation.
“Could come with you,” I said impulsively, surprising myself as much as him.
“Come with me?” Declan repeated, looking genuinely confused.
“I need to get out of town for a few hours,” I said, which was suddenly and completely true.
“Away from festival planning and family questions and everyone asking about our relationship status after the other night. I could use some distance to think clearly.” I left out the bit about the job interview. He didn’t need to know that. Yet.
“It’s just a property assessment,” Declan said carefully. “Pretty boring, actually. Looking at foundation issues and checking for water damage.”
“I don’t mind boring,” I said, though what I was thinking was that spending a few hours in a car with Declan would be many things, but boring wasn’t likely to be one of them.
Declan studied my face for a long moment, and I could see him weighing the wisdom of spending several hours alone together when we were both working so hard not to rip each other’s clothes off.
“Okay,” he said finally. “But it’s supposed to snow later, so we might hit some weather on the way back.”
“Can you give me five minutes to grab my handbag?” I asked.
He nodded, and I leapt out of the car to race back inside.
“Heading out for a bit!” I yelled to Mom. “See you later!”
“Bye!” Mom called back, sounding suspiciously like she was in the sitting room, curtain twitching.
Seconds later, I was settled in the passenger seat of Declan’s car with the kind of nervous anticipation that came with making impulsive decisions that might turn out to be either brilliant or disastrous.
“Ready?” Declan asked, adjusting the heat and checking the GPS.
“Ready,” I said, though as we pulled out of our childhood driveways and headed north toward whatever property his parents were considering, I realized I had no idea what I was ready for beyond getting away from Everdale Falls long enough to think clearly about job interviews and growing feelings and whether I was brave enough to trust someone new with my carefully protected heart.
The snow started to fall in fat flakes that made the world look soft and romantic and slightly dangerous. Perfect weather for making impulsive decisions about road trips with hot men who, only a few minutes ago, you were fantasizing about in bed.
Apparently, this required a leap-of-faith moment, and I’d leapt without even thinking twice.