The Christmas Catch (9 page)

She spun on her heels to find John sprinting toward them in
his Carolina sweatshirt, a large manila envelope in hand.

“Thank God I caught you.” He leaned forward panting, hands
resting on his thighs. “I thought I was too late.”

Christine stared at him is disbelief. “What are you doing
here?”

He huffed and puffed, still catching his breath. “I couldn’t
let you leave without this,” he said, extending the manila envelop toward her.

“I’m not sure I understand. What is it?”

John caught his wind, straightening. “A business plan,
Christine. This is it! A solution. A way to get from point A to point Z!”

She stared at him flatly unable to mask her disappointment.
“Oh.”

He appeared confused, thrown off guard. John ran his fingers
through his short dark hair, settling his gaze on hers. “But this is what
you’ve wanted.
Your own line.
Your
own company, even.
I…” He surveyed her once more, his cheeks sagging. “I
thought that you’d be pleased.”

“Pleased, John? When you didn’t even bother to tell us good-bye?
Just sort of dropped out of the picture? And now you suddenly appear with
this
.” She eyed the envelope with
disdain, causing him to flinch and step back.

He wrinkled his brow, pleading. “Won’t you at least take a
look? Glance over it on your flight?”

She’d spent these last three days trying to forget him. The
last thing she needed to do was
carry reminders
home.
“Thanks, but I’ve got to make plans for my life in Chicago.”

“But this
is
for
your life,” he said, attempting once more to hand it over. “Christine, please…”
He released the envelope, but she failed to grasp it, letting it fall to the
floor. Tyler eyed them both uncertainly,
then
scooped it
up.
 

Christine set her chin and willed it not to tremble. Here
was this gorgeous man with whom she thought she’d made a personal connection,
and all he cared about was cold, hard business. Perhaps he’d never felt anything
for her at all, or for Tyler, either.

“Thanks for a swell New England vacation,” she said, turning
away and taking Tyler’s hand. “It was nice knowing you.” She walked her child
toward security, the pain in her chest searing. After Christmas night, she
didn’t believe her heart could break again, but she’d been wrong.

Tyler looked sadly over his shoulder as they slipped away,
milling in with the line passing through the security scanner. John couldn’t
stop the burn in his throat any more than he could the heat in his eyes. He’d
thought she’d be happy to see him. Instead, she’d greeted him with chilling
disdain. He’d spent untold hours on that plan, believing it was the best thing
he could do for her. Wasn’t helping her build the life she wanted the right
thing? Her world was in Chicago; his life was here. There were no two ways
about it.

John pursed his lips, recalling toboggan rides and warm
nights by the fire… Little Tyler’s
Whoohoo!
when
he was thrilled about something. Then, there was
the memory of Christine in his arms as they danced through the night, and his
inward desire to never let her go. But the hard fact was that he couldn’t hold
on forever.

“You did
what
?”
Carlos asked with disbelief when they met for coffee a few hours later.
“Followed her all the way to the airport to deliver a
business plan
?”

“Come on, man,” John said, feeling gloomy. “I thought that
you, of all people, would understand what a gesture that was.”

“No. What kind of gesture was it?”

“A very generous one! I put my heart and soul into that
proposal!”

“Harrumph.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Let me guess. She wasn’t exactly thrilled to see you.”

“No, in fact she wasn’t,”
John
said, still reeling from the shock. “Frankly, she was pretty ticked off.”

Carlos slowly shook his head then met John’s eyes. “You
know, for a very smart man, you can be a really big dummy sometimes.”

“What are you driving at, Carlos. Just spill it.”

“John, John… You meet this pretty single mom up here on vacation.
You wine her and dine her and make her think something is possible…”

“Hang on just one second! She did every bit as much wining
and dining as I did!”

“You’re only proving my point.”

“Which is?”

“You may not have wanted it to happen. By some Christmas
miracle, maybe even the two of you didn’t see it coming. But, one way or
another, you and Christine were drawn to each other, found yourselves falling—”

“Precisely why I had to stop it!” John shot back. “Can’t you
see? That was the best thing—the right thing—for us both!”

Carlos slowly stroked his beard. “Was it?”

Mason, who’d been sitting at John’s feet, shot him a dirty
look.

“You,”
John
admonished the dog, “stay out of it.”

Chapter Fourteen

It was New Year’s Eve in the elegant bistro. Carlos poured
Ellen a glass of champagne as they sat at a romantic table for two.

“I’m having a hard time feeling festive with things ending
so badly between John and Christine,” she said.

Carlos took her hand. “I know,
querida
. But it’s their business, and their problem to work out.”

“What are the odds?”

“In love, everything’s uncertain, yes?” He lifted her hand
giving the back of it a kiss. “Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Then you
head back to
go
and start all over
again.”

“That’s just it,” Ellen said with a worried frown. “I don’t
know if Christine will ever head back to
go
after this.” She sipped from her champagne. “Where’s John tonight?”

“Likely moping about his place with that old mutt of his,”
Carlos answered. “What do you think Christine’s doing?”

Ellen sighed. “Probably sitting around in her apartment with
Tyler, watching the ball drop on TV.”

The two of them sat for a moment in silence.

“Do you think Christine will be okay?” Carlos asked with
concern.

“Oh yeah, she’ll bounce back. She’s tough. I don’t know
about in the love department… but, otherwise, she’ll get her life together.
Christine always gets her life together. She’s got to, right? She does it for
Tyler.” She pursed her lips and looked at him. “What about John?”

Carlos shrugged. “Tough as nails, too. He’ll be fine.”

But, by the way the two of them stared at each other, it was
as if neither one believed it.

Carlos perused Ellen thoughtfully. “What time do you leave
in the morning?”

“Ten o’clock.”

“Then let’s not let tonight go to waste,” he said, clinking
her glass.

Ellen smiled warmly, thinking what a rare and unexpected
treat it was that the two of them had met. “To us,” she said, toasting back.

“And to living in the moment, when the moment’s right.”

Tyler dozed in a large leather chair, a New Year’s hat askew
on his head, as Christine watch the ball drop in New York’s Times Square on
television.
Happy New
Year, indeed.
She shared a
silent toast with the air,
then
frowned. Everything felt
wrong about how things had ended with John, but she hadn’t really seen another
way around it. What was she supposed to do? Fall at his feet with gratitude
when he’d surprised her at the airport with that ridiculous plan?

She tapped her glass with her fingers, eying the manila
envelop on the end table. What could be so hellfire important that he’d raced
to catch them before they boarded their plane?
A way to get from point A to Z?
Well fine. John could keep his
unsolicited advice, and Christine wished he had. Seeing him at the airport had
just made things worse. She’d known he’d really hurt her, but hadn’t understood
how badly until he’d appeared at the last minute and caused her battered heart
to hope. For an instant, she believed him to regret letting them go without so
much as a word. But he’d shown no hint of remorse at all, only confusion in
light of his damnable insistence that she read what he’d brought.

Christine drew a deep breath, steeling her emotions. She
didn’t need a sexy professor from New England anyway. She and Ty had done just
fine before he’d come along, and would do great going forward without him. He
could keep all that snow, and those tobogganing hills, the warm nights by the
fire, and his dog. Christine sighed, recalling Tyler’s joyful bonding with
Mason. Maybe she’d have to get him a puppy. But not any time soon. There was
enough going on in the balancing act between being a single mom and working.

She took another sip of champagne, weighing the demands of
her job and all it entailed. The truth was that she’d been asking for more
responsibility at work, but Ellen had been resistant. Perhaps it was true that
Christine had seemed out of focus before, but the trip to Vermont had done her
good. She sensed greater clarity now. While John had been wrong in many ways,
most especially in the way he’d treated her, he actually was correct in
assuming Christine wanted more for herself than what she currently had. She was
capable of it too. She knew she could develop her own line, and had several
ideas for interactive products with Internet potential as well. It would likely
take time, but she was still relatively young, so time was on her side. John’s
prescient words came back to her like a haunting refrain.
The future is long…

She set down her champagne and lifted the manila envelope,
almost afraid of its contents. What if John’s plan was more helpful than she’d
imagined? She had enough of a level head to separate a business opportunity
from a personal disappointment, didn’t she? If she ultimately had a different
path for herself in mind, wouldn’t it make sense to think out the logical steps
to achieving her goal now? She tentatively broke its seal, her heart pounding.
It was just a stack of papers. So why did Christine have a premonition her
whole life was about to change?

John flipped off the TV and set down the remote. On the
coffee table before him, a bottle of champagne in bucket of ice sat untouched.
He’d considered inviting one of his lady friends to join him for the evening,
but somehow the thought of entertaining was distasteful. He didn’t really want
to have anyone else over when the only person he could think of was Christine.
While it had never been a big deal before, being physical with a casual
acquaintance suddenly didn’t appeal to him. He’d only kissed Christine once,
but their kissing session had felt as intimate as they come. She’d been so warm
and willing in his arms, her flesh molding against his as their mouths melded.
He’d never longed to make love to a woman more, slowly and tenderly, employing
all of his manly talents. He knew he could treat her right, and would take
every care to ensure her happiness in bed. Sadly, he hadn’t done such a hot job
of filling her with joy outside of it.

He glanced at Mason, still mad at him, on the other side of
the room. The dog turned his back on John, sitting beside the Christmas tree.

“Come on, boy. You’re not going to hold a grudge forever?”

Mason walked his paws forward, slinking into a lying
position. After a few moments, John heard him gnawing and knew he’d locked onto
his giant rawhide bone. John sagged forward, his elbows resting on his knees,
head in hands. If he’d really done the right thing with Christine, then why was
everybody here trying to make him feel like he’d done something terrible?

John thought back to Christine’s admission in the kitchen.
He
had
made her happy out of bed, but
then he’d gone and blown it big-time. But she’d caught him so off guard, he
hadn’t known how to respond. What could he have said? That she made him happy
too? John stared at the Christmas tree, mentally reliving every moment. Of
course, she’d made him happy. She and Tyler both had, each in their own way. When
he’d been with the two of them together, they’d been almost like a family. Although
it had been pretend, he’d felt contented in that role. He’d just been so unfamiliar
with the
feeling,
he hadn’t known what it was.

John swallowed hard, thinking there’d been another emotion
present, something deeply personal and just between him and Christine, but he’d
been in denial of that as well. He had his hands full these days and building
his career to consider besides. Despite the common myth of the easygoing life
of the college professor, the hard truth was that competition in academia was
exceedingly tough. You had to publish or perish, and keep forging ahead. John
was an ambitious man who’d carved out a path for
himself
.
His own dad had been an unsteady worker who was often unemployed and barely
able to keep food on the table for John and his younger sister.

John had vowed at thirteen to work his way past that. And,
from that first job tending the golf course at that upper-crust country club to
his full graduate school scholarship, he had. Still, John believed he shouldn’t
become serious with any woman, or consider having a family, until he found
himself in a financially stable position. He’d be damned if he was going to
repeat the past, when he was capable of charting his own future. Of course, he
was contemporary enough to understand his wife would have her own career, but
that didn’t negate the sense of responsibility that had been pounded into him
each time he’d seen tears of desperation welling in his mother’s eyes. Because
his late dad had been unable to prepare for it, John was now making
arrangements for his mom’s welfare too. He also helped out his kid sister, as he
was able. She was a single mom and putting herself through school besides.
There was a lot on his plate, a hell of a lot more than Christine, or anyone
else—including Carlos—knew.