Do You Believe in Santa? (11 page)

So he kissed her again. It might be the cheapest way to avoid any more questions, but it was also the most worthwhile.

Having Mandy in his arms, he decided, didn't feel like being on vacation.

It felt like home.

Chapter 11

The ugly, ugly ringing of Jake's cell phone sounded next to his bed. He felt as if he'd been hit by an especially ill-tempered truck.

But as he reached for the phone, he didn't feel the disorientation that came from being wakened from a sound sleep. It had been a restless night, and he was well aware of where he was and what was happening. Nevertheless, the time displayed on the screen of the phone astonished him: six-ten in the morning.

Yes, Scranton was three hours ahead. But the corporate office should realize California was three hours behind.

“Good morning,” Jake answered dryly.

It was Mark, his regional director. “How'd the meeting go? I didn't hear from you last night.”

“That's because I knew it was midnight your time,” Jake said pointedly.

Of course, in the past, he probably would have texted or e-mailed. He really
had
been obsessive.

He should have let his phone go to voice mail to give himself time to wake up and gather his thoughts. That ship had sailed. So he propped himself up on the pillows, making himself at least semi-vertical, and told Mark about the meeting as neutrally as he could.

“Do you think this one's worth pursuing?” Mark asked.

Jake tried, with all his resolve, to be objective. It had never come to this. Normally, setbacks and delays were only red tape, not outright resistance. Would he still want to chase Tall Pine if Mandy weren't here? Yes, he decided. Because he wouldn't want to lose. But maybe that wasn't a good enough reason.

Instead, he reminded Mark of the assets that had drawn them to Tall Pine in the first place. A quiet, scenic location less than two hours from Los Angeles. An untapped market. A reasonable tourist trade of people wanting a weekend getaway.

It all still made sense on paper. Until you added in the other column, with the six faces of the town council on the other side.

Margery Williams had been fairly empathetic. Winston Frazier, silently antagonistic. Jake had probably alienated Rick Brewster, and the other three were an unknown quantity.

But those unknowns had voted in favor of a committee.

“Can you make it fly?” Mark persisted.

What happens if I don't?
Jake's job might not be on the line, but his track record was. A perfect track record. He could walk away and leave it intact.

“Yes,” he said. “I think I can make it work.”

If Mark noticed the wording,
I think,
he didn't acknowledge it.

Instead, Mark asked, “The next town council meeting isn't until next month?”

 

 

Mandy sat on the sofa to put on her shoes, trying to put on her resolve at the same time. Today, she was going to tell Jake.

Her cell phone rang.

“Mandy?” Jake's voice sounded far away and distorted.

“Jake? I'm having trouble hearing you.”

“Sorry. I'm using the Bluetooth. I'm on my way to the airport.”

Her heart lurched.

“They called me back in to the home office. I'll be gone a couple of weeks.”

Mandy remembered Jake's spartan hotel room with the orderly, nearly empty closet. That closet must be empty now.

“We touched base about the meeting last night, and they want me back to catch up on things at the office.”

She gulped. That couldn't be good. It didn't help that the phone connection made him sound so far away.

“Mandy? Are you there?”

She found herself talking louder, trying to cover the distance. “I'm here.”
But you're not.

“I know the timing's awful. It wasn't my idea. I'll be back. And I'll call you while I'm gone.”

She gripped the phone, wishing the connection between them didn't feel so tenuous. Her free hand clutched the stomach that hadn't recovered yet from yesterday.

In a way, it was a reprieve. She'd resolved to tell him the truth; surely, over the telephone, the truth could wait. She'd have time to think about what to say. To stall.

To worry about it.

 

 

This could be a good thing, Jake tried to tell himself.

A couple of weeks away would give him a chance to think more objectively and weigh his priorities. Because they'd certainly changed in the short month he'd spent in Tall Pine. Maybe, back at the office, he'd be able to concentrate, work smarter, and figure out what he'd been doing wrong.

He tried to play the town hall meeting over in his head like a transcript. Heaven knew the words were emblazoned in his memory. But what he kept hearing was Mandy's voice on the other end of the cell phone connection.

And he kept feeling, even as he drove to the airport and boarded the eastbound flight, that he was heading in the wrong direction.

During the two-hour layover in Dallas, his phone rang.

It was Winston Frazier.

“Mr. Wyndham, I'll be honest. I didn't think this Regal Hotel proposal would make it past last night.”

“Now with this committee, it doesn't look like it's going to go away.” Frazier cleared his throat. “My nephew suggested you and I meet to talk about it.”

Jake frowned. “Your nephew?”

“Scott Leroux.”

A
click
sounded in Jake's brain as the puzzle piece snapped into place. He saw Mandy standing in the restaurant last night in that semirigid stance and remembered Leroux's amused look. Jake had given her a hard time for talking to the guy.

“I'd be glad to meet with you,” Jake said. “There's only one problem. . . .”

And he had the pleasure of telling Frazier he was on his way across the country. If the old man hadn't sounded thrilled before, he sounded less thrilled now. Why couldn't Mark have waited a few more days to bring him in?

Still, it was a foot in the door, and Jake would keep that foot wedged there even if it meant stretching his leg three thousand miles across the United States.

“Mr. Frazier, I'll call you to set this up, as soon as I'm able to check my schedule at the office. Will tomorrow morning work for you?”

“It'll do.” Jake could have sworn he heard a grimace on the other end.

“Sir, I appreciate this. I know this wasn't anything you'd planned on, but I—” Jake cut himself off before he started trying to argue his case again. “I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts.”

That got a better reaction. “Yes. Well, I'll talk to you tomorrow.”

Jake hung up.
Remember that. When you meet with him, don't just talk. Listen.

That was Common Business Sense 101, and he hadn't been using it last night. Maybe his head was already starting to clear.

The thought didn't stop him from dialing Mandy's cell number immediately. It went to voice mail. Of course—she'd be at work. Jake checked his watch and saw he'd probably just missed her lunch break.

He hung up. He didn't want to use a recording to thank her, or a text message. But he didn't want to wait hours, either.

Jake gazed at the wallpaper image on his phone: a picture of Mandy, smiling, with the sunset lake behind her. He grinned.

There's an app for that,
he thought.

 

 

“Merry Christmas.” Mandy handed her customer a bag containing a ceramic jack-o'-lantern. Both of them laughed at the mixed message.

Mrs. Swanson had left after lunch, so Mandy had the store to herself. She beamed at every customer who walked in, and she didn't have to fake the smile. Every new person who came through the door brought a welcome opportunity to keep busy. She put a Bing Crosby CD on the store sound system and let the old favorites wash over her. It almost helped, except it reminded her that “White Christmas” had been playing the first time Jake came into The North Pole.

He had said he'd be back. She needed to believe that and not worry. The trick was to stay occupied in the meantime.

Mandy eyed the fall display table and thought of something she could work on.

Across from the pumpkins, she started a display of Christmas crafts: needlepoint kits for stockings, embroidery kits for pillows, figurines and ornaments to paint. She made a mental note to set them out earlier next year. She'd meant to do it before Jake arrived, but—to use Jake's word—she'd gotten distracted.

She was close enough to the counter to hear her cell phone when it rang in her purse. The muffled electronic chime of “Deck the Halls” struggled to compete with Bing Crosby.

Mandy circled the counter to check the phone. It had gone to voice mail by the time she picked it up. The call log displayed Jake's number.

Before she could check for a message or try to call back, a woman walked in with three little girls. Quickly, Mandy stashed her phone.

The girls went straight to the craft-table-in-progress, and soon Mandy was busy helping their mother find projects to suit their ages. While she talked with her customers, Mandy heard the sound of jingling bells from behind the counter—the tone that signaled she'd gotten a text.

When her customers left, Mandy beelined to the counter to open the message. It took several seconds to load.

Then a snow globe materialized on her screen, tiny white flakes falling inside, with an animated Santa Claus soaring upward in a reindeer-drawn sleigh.

Instead of a Christmas greeting, there were two lines of text in a festive cursive font:
Winston called. THANK YOU.

And below, in smaller letters:
P.S. Please excuse the corny St. Nick.

Mandy felt a warm flush from her head to her feet.

Maybe Jake understood her better than she thought.

 

 

At first Jake told himself it was jet lag.

Pennsylvania felt different from what he remembered. The walls of the office felt closer, more confining. His desk had managed to pick up a fine layer of dust. Even his own apartment felt impersonal, out of use, not much more homey than his hotel room in Tall Pine.

He'd arrived back in town just in time for a series of first-quarter planning meetings, one of the major reasons Mark had wanted him back. The meetings themselves were death, but getting ready for them required the kind of financial projections Jake usually loved sinking his teeth into. Now he found himself restless, bored, distracted.

Still
distracted?

He made an appointment with Winston Frazier for the second week in October, and he counted that as his most tangible accomplishment so far.

A few days after he arrived, he ran into Lorraine at the copy machine. They'd been smiling and nodding at each other in the hallway for days, but this was the first time he found himself face-to-face with her long enough to call for any sort of conversation.

Awkward. They'd broken up six months ago, after a year and a half of dating. Since then they hadn't spent enough time in the same city to establish any kind of a new “normal.”

But Lorraine, one of those tall women who wasn't timid about wearing heels, was all smiles as she picked up her copies. She stepped back to make room for him at the machine. “So, how was California?”

“Complicated.” Jake laid a spreadsheet on the copier.

“No swimming pools, movie stars?”

“Nope.” Jake hit the button. “Pine trees, mountain cabins.”

“Sounds more like here.”

“Not exactly.” He grinned, remembering his first conversation with Mandy. “Out there, snow is something they drive up to visit.”

“So, what got complicated?”

“A cranky town council that meets once a month. It's a long story.”

“Want to talk about it at lunch?”

Jake hesitated. A simple thing like lunch shouldn't be a landmine for misinterpretation. Their breakup had been mutual, or so he'd thought.

He met her eyes. “Burgers, Dutch?” That should be clear enough.

Lorraine's smile didn't falter. “Sure.”

He knew he was taking a chance. But Lorraine was a bright woman, she'd always been a good sounding board, and they ought to establish that new normal at some point.

They ate at a hamburger chain, the kind of place Tall Pine wouldn't abide. Jake explained the town's unwritten policy while they waited at the table for their numbers to be called. Numbers, not names. Once again, Jake had a sense of culture shock.

“The thing is, they have a point,” he said. “Part of the appeal of Tall Pine is that it's away from all this stuff.”

“Stuff?”

“Franchises. Corporate America. If a chain hotel comes in, they're afraid it could lead to a lot more.” He felt like a broken record, except that Lorraine hadn't heard it yet.

Their orders came up. As they ate, Jake realized it wasn't awkward at all. It was familiar. Very much the same way they'd interacted when they were dating.

Then again, that had been part of the problem. They'd called it off, in large part, because they felt like colleagues more than anything else. So, did this feel like a date or not? Being with her reminded him simultaneously of why they'd gone out for a year and a half, and why they'd broken up.

As Lorraine started talking about possible strategies, it was like listening to himself. Shoptalk. No flights of fancy or quirky conversations about ghosts and what Santa Claus should look like. With Mandy, there was always something more to talk about—except for that final night, when he'd been letting the town council meeting eat him alive.

“So, is it worth it?” Lorraine asked. She'd come back around to Mark's question.