Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Vanessa was on her way back from picking up a few items for The Toy Chest from the Holly and Ivy Market when she saw Lincoln walking down Main Street in the opposite direction, his shoulders hunched against the December chill and his expression more dejected than usual.
Vanessa immediately felt a pang in her chest, suspecting that it had something to do with how her and Mabel’s plotting had gone sideways.
She tucked her bag over her shoulder and hurried to catch up with him, calling his name as she did.
“Lincoln! Lincoln, hey!”
He paused, looking at her as they both came to a stop on the sidewalk, and Vanessa could see that he looked tired, as if he hadn’t slept all that well. He gave her a tight smile, and her stomach sank. This definitely had to do with Imogen.
“Hey,” he said with clearly forced cheer. “How are you doing?”
“I’m fine, but more importantly, how are you doing?” Vanessa asked, studying his face with concern. “You look like someone stole your last Christmas present.”
Lincoln managed a short laugh. “That’s not too far from how I feel, actually.”
“What’s wrong?” Vanessa asked, hoping maybe it wasn’t Imogen after all, although she didn’t want something else to be bothering her friend either.
Lincoln glanced around at the busy street, clearly reluctant to talk about it. “It’s nothing dramatic. Just… relationship stuff, I suppose.”
“Imogen?” Vanessa guessed. There was no point in beating around the bush.
“Yeah, I guess it isn’t that hard to figure out,” Lincoln said tiredly. “Especially since you and Mabel orchestrated all of it.”
Vanessa scrunched up her nose a bit. “Are you mad at us?”
“No,” he said quietly. “Just bummed that things turned out the way they did. The gift exchange was perfect. The sleigh ride was great, even if I knew it was fishy. We talked about old memories and reminisced and I really thought we’d reconnected.
It felt like we were picking up on something unfinished, like there really was something there. ”
“That’s good, though!” Vanessa said. “That all sounds great.”
“Yeah, except the part where she’s been avoiding me ever since. She didn’t respond to my text yesterday, didn’t return my phone call, and when I stopped by the shop this morning to check on her, she practically couldn’t wait to get rid of me.”
Vanessa felt her stomach drop. “That doesn’t sound like Imogen at all.”
“No, it doesn’t. It’s pretty obvious that she’s pushing me away because she found out about our friends throwing us together,” he said flatly. “It made her feel differently about it, or regret it, or something, and now she wants space. I guess I can’t blame her.”
“But you didn’t know about the setup either,” Vanessa protested. “You were just as surprised by the sleigh ride as she was.”
“I know that, and you know that, but I’m not sure it matters that much to Imogen,” Lincoln said. “And honestly, I can’t blame her for being upset. Nobody likes feeling manipulated, even with the best intentions.”
Hearing that felt devastating, and Vanessa caught her breath, wishing she could somehow go back and find a way to do it differently.
All they’d wanted was to bring their friends together, and it seemed as if it had spectacularly backfired.
She and Mabel had tried to make opportunities for Lincoln and Imogen to realize their feelings for each other, but instead they’d apparently made it impossible for either of them to trust those feelings.
She supposed the best thing would probably be to leave it alone, to apologize to Lincoln and let everything go back to the way it had been before for him and Imogen.
Eventually the feelings about the setup would wear off, and they’d go back to being friends.
But Vanessa couldn’t help but feel that was all wrong.
Henry’s comments about his late wife Daisy came back to her as she stood there in the cold, searching for what to say.
How sure he’d been that she was the love of his life, how happy he’d been for the time he’d had with her even if they’d known it wouldn’t be as much as they wanted.
How he had no regrets, even if that love had come with difficulty and grief.
She saw that kind of love in Lincoln and Imogen, even if they couldn’t get past the obstacles in their way to see it for themselves.
She wanted her best friend to have that kind of love, to experience it fully.
And she was determined not to let this mistake get in the way of Lincoln and Imogen’s love story.
She wouldn’t let it end this way.
“Let me handle this,” she said determinedly, looking at Lincoln. “I’ll fix it. Just give me a little time.”
“Vanessa, no,” Lincoln said quickly, clearly recognizing her tone. “I appreciate the thought, but I think you’ve all done enough handling for one situation. Maybe it’s better if I just give her some space and let her figure out what she wants without any more outside pressure.”
“Absolutely not,” Vanessa said firmly. “You two are meant to be together. Anyone with eyes can see that. And I can see how you feel about her. She’s my best friend, and I’m not going to let a little miscommunication about our matchmaking ruin what could be the best thing that’s happened to either of you in years. ”
“Vanessa—” Lincoln began, but she was already striding past him, her mind racing with plans.
“Trust me,” she called over her shoulder as she hurried toward Imogen’s shop. “Just let me handle it!”
She could hear Lincoln calling after her, probably trying to talk her out of whatever intervention she was planning, but Vanessa was focused on her mission.
She needed to find Imogen and have an honest conversation about what was really happening here.
Someone needed to help her understand that what she felt for Lincoln was totally separate from the unfortunate missteps that had happened in creating the opportunity for her to have those feelings.
Vanessa hurried down the street to Artisan Chocolates, only to see that the door was locked with the Closed sign on it. She bit her lip, glancing at her watch, and thought that maybe Imogen had gone out for a late lunch. If so, she probably would have gone to the diner.
Sure enough, Vanessa spotted Imogen through the diner’s front window, sitting alone at a corner booth with what appeared to be a half-eaten sandwich and fries. She looked tired and pensive, staring out the window at the street outside and picking at her food.
Vanessa took a deep breath and hurried into the diner, breathing in the familiar, comforting smells of Jackson’s cooking as she made a beeline for the booth her friend was in.
“Imogen!” she called out cheerfully as she hurried over. “What a nice surprise. Mind if I join you?”
Imogen looked up, her smile a little tired. “Of course not. Sit down.”
Vanessa slid into the booth across from her friend, breathing in deeply as she thought about what she wanted to say. “How did the magazine interview go?” she asked, wanting to start with something good.
“Great,” Imogen said, her smile brightening a little. “They want to use the sculpture as the cover piece, which I never would have thought they would do. It all went better than I expected, really. I’m proud of how it all turned out, and I still can’t believe I pulled it off.”
“That’s fantastic!” Vanessa exclaimed. “I’m so proud of you. This is exactly the kind of recognition you deserve for all your hard work.”
“Thank you,” Imogen said, her smile quickly fading. “It’s been quite a week for unexpected attention.”
Vanessa let out a breath. “I wanted to talk to you about that, actually. I just ran into Lincoln. He seemed… really down.”
Imogen pressed her lips together. “Oh?”
“He mentioned that you’ve been avoiding him since the sleigh ride,” Vanessa continued gently. “He’s worried that he did something to upset you.”
“He didn’t do anything wrong,” Imogen said quietly. “That’s not the issue.”
“Then what is the issue?” Vanessa asked. “Because from where I’m sitting, you both seemed to have a wonderful time the other night. And now you’re both miserable and confused, which seems like the opposite of what should have happened afterward.”
Imogen met her friend’s eyes, her eyes flashing with something that might have been anger or hurt.
“You want to know what the issue is, Vanessa? The issue is that I found out the whole thing was fake. The Secret Santa gifts, the sleigh ride—all of it orchestrated by my well-meaning friends who apparently thought I was too hopeless to figure out my own love life.”
Vanessa winced. “It’s not that. We definitely don’t think that. And I’m so sorry that it hurt you instead of what we meant for it to do. That wasn’t what we wanted at all. We just wanted—”
“Lincoln and I to get together. I know.” Imogen blew out a sharp breath. “And now I don’t know what to trust about anything that happened. Were Lincoln’s feelings genuine, or was he just being polite because he felt pressured by the situation you all created?”
“He didn’t know about it at all though,” Vanessa protested.
“He was as in the dark as you were. We just created opportunities, we didn’t plot anything with either of you.
We thought we saw that there was something, and we just wanted to make it easier for it to…
happen. It backfired, and I’m so sorry. Not because you’re upset at us, but because we would never have done it if we’d known it would make you feel this way. ”
“But how can I know if it’s real?” Imogen asked, her eyes suspiciously shiny. “How can I trust my feelings when I know the whole situation was artificially created?”