Mistletoe Hero

Chapter Fifteen

Arianne had just parked her car Friday afternoon when her cell phone rang. “Hello?”

“Where are you?” Gabe asked, his tone jubilant.

“Outside the post office. I promised Mom I’d run in before they closed today and pick her up some stamps. Why?”

“Because I thought we might have dinner together and celebrate some minor news.”

She leaned back in her seat, loving how happy he sounded. “I’m always up for a celebration. What’s the news?”

“That college in South Carolina? They want to have a phone interview with me next week, and if that goes well, meet me in person. They also offer an internship program for employees who are interested in pursuing degrees.”

“That’s great.” But the words of congratulations were like gravel in her mouth. Did he have to sound so overjoyed about getting away from here?

He tuned into her dismay immediately. “We’ll figure something out. You know I don’t want to stop seeing you.”

“Neither do I.” But seeing him would be more difficult if they were in two separate states.

It’s not as if they were talking about a short-term assignment, where he went for a few quarters of college work and came back. Even as happy as he’d seemed during the week since the festival, he’d never talked about settling permanently in Mistletoe.

Arianne tried to imagine herself anywhere else and failed. This town was as much her family as David or Tanner. “You know,” she said, “Mistletoe does have a really good community college.”

“So you’ve mentioned. About a dozen times this week.” He sighed, and she felt terrible, as if she’d sucked the wind from his sails. “It’s almost five. If you’re going to run into the post office, I should let you go.”

“What about dinner?” Nice going, Ari. He’d been so upbeat when he called.

“You can call me back,” he said tersely. Then he disconnected.

Arianne got out of the car, determined to get her reservations under control so that by the time she spoke to him again, she could sound genuinely congratulatory instead of resentful.

A man leaving the building with his mail held the door open for her, and she stopped in her tracks.

There was a reproachful look in his familiar silvery eyes. “You going in or not?” he asked.

“You!” It seemed like a sign from the heavens. “You’re Gabe’s father.”

The man shifted uncomfortably as if uneasy with that designation. “I’m Jeremy Sloan.”

Jeremy Sloan, the man who’d loved his dead wife more than the son who had lived. “I’m Arianne Waide, your son’s girlfriend.” Which made them like in-laws once removed, and Ari had never been shy about giving her relatives, even the distant ones, advice.

“I don’t suppose you’ve ever considered making amends for being a bad father?” she snapped, angry that she might be losing Gabe just as she found him and frustrated with Jeremy’s role in that. Perhaps if he and his son had mended their fences, Gabe could be more content here.

Jeremy’s mouth dropped open, his face coloring. “Is that what he says, that I was a bad father?”

“He doesn’t say much one way or the other,” she admitted. “I was putting words in his mouth. But come on! When was the last time you spent any time with him? Do you know that even Earline Ortz spoke to him last weekend? She forgave him for Shay’s death, so why can’t you?”

“Ms. Waide, my relationship with my son is none of your business.” He let go of the door and marched past her on the sidewalk.

Arianne took a breath, realizing she’d botched this conversation unforgivably, but she hadn’t been prepared. “Mr. Sloan? I don’t think you have a relationship with your son, and maybe you’re okay with that. But if you aren’t, act fast. He’s leaving.”

The man turned to face her. “Leaving? To go where? He’s spent his whole life here.”

“Be that as it may, he doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life here,” she said gently, pleased to see that Jeremy looked upset about this. Perhaps the threat of losing Gabe permanently would goad the man into action.

If Gabe really was moving soon, she’d like that to be her parting gift to him. He might think that all he needed for a fresh start was a new address, but you couldn’t start anew if you were still emotionally chained to the old.

She just hoped that a new beginning for him didn’t mean the end for them.

GABE WAS IN HELL. Oh, it might look like a charming Sunday dinner complete with smiling Waides and delicious homemade food-Ari hadn’t exaggerated her mother’s culinary prowess-but it was nonetheless Hades. Since Gabe had never had a serious romantic relationship before, he’d never had to Meet the Family before. It shouldn’t be that hard, given that he already knew everyone seated around the table, but it was agonizing.

He was unused to anyone fussing over him, and Susan Waide’s warm, maternal nature was making him vaguely uncomfortable. But at least she was better than Zachariah, who’d always considered Gabe one of his best clients and treated him well. Today the man was watching him intently beneath bushy eyebrows as if he knew exactly what Gabe and Arianne had been doing last night and emphatically did not approve. But the person at the table who was really driving him crazy was Arianne.

She’d been manic for the last couple of days, talking him up to people as if he were campaigning for an actual political position instead of the throwaway title of Mistletoe’s Man of the Year. He was sure she meant for her enthusiastic praise to be flattering, yet she seemed almost condescending when he was sitting right there. As if she didn’t trust him to speak for himself. She’d told her parents about the book he was reading and the jobs he’d done this week.

“Barb Echols told me at the grocery store that she just doesn’t know what she would have done without Gabe,” Arianne said. Then she turned and beamed at him as if she were a proud teacher and he was her most accomplished student.

The baby, who’d been sleeping in her bassinet in the next room, woke with a cry, and Rachel turned to ask her husband, “Will you go check on her? Please?”

“Or you could let Gabe do it.” Arianne volunteered him. “You should have seen him last weekend. He was a natural. You’d think he was around babies every day!”

He glared. “Actually, if it’s all the same to David, I was planning to finish my pork roast.”

The truth was, while he’d had some fun moments playing with Bailey, he hadn’t spent much time with babies and had found himself to be awkward and uncertain. Arianne knew that full well-she’d even called him on it. The way she was gushing now, embellishing the truth, made him feel as if she was overcompensating for some lack in his personality.

She’d told him repeatedly that if he made an effort with the people in this town, they’d like him. Apparently, if she didn’t think his effort was enough, she’d start networking on his behalf. I want a girlfriend, not a public relations agent! It had been one thing for her to nominate him-against his will-for the Man of the Year title and extol his virtues then, but he wished she wouldn’t lay it on so thick with her own family. Did she think he couldn’t win them over on his own merits?

When Susan stood at the end of dinner and announced brightly that she was getting everyone’s dessert-and that Arianne should come with her to help-Gabe wanted to cheer. The break would be nice. In fact, he was beginning to have a new appreciation for the merits of a long-distance relationship.

ARIANNE DUTIFULLY CROSSED to the cabinet and got out the dessert plates, but deep down she knew this wasn’t why her mother had summoned her into the privacy of the kitchen.

“All right.” Susan leaned against the kitchen island, making no move to slice the vanilla-glazed Bundt cake she’d made. “What is going on with you in there?”

Arianne pressed a hand to her forehead. “I know. I can’t seem to shut up. I’m just…nervous.”

“Get over it. I raised you to be a gracious hostess, and your guest looks like he’s ready to throw himself into a ravine. Sweetheart, if you like him, we like him, so stop the hard sell. Petey Gruebner isn’t this pushy when he’s hocking used cars! Any moment now I expect you to tell us we have one year with zero interest, and that if we act now, we can get a second Gabe free.”

Arianne didn’t know whether to laugh at her mother or groan. “I’m really that bad?”

“Worse,” her mother chirped. “And you’re making everyone uncomfortable.”

“I’ll try to do better,” she pledged. The truth was, her involuntary song and dance wasn’t for her family’s benefit. She knew they’d love Gabe-how could they not? No, it was him she was trying to impress.

She kept thinking that maybe if he felt important enough to the community here, loved enough, that he’d decide he wanted to stay. She just had to show him he belonged. An old song ran through her head: “Hold On Loosely.” That’s what she needed to do. She couldn’t keep Gabe by clinging to him and thwarting his options for the future. But even knowing that, she had trouble adopting a que sera attitude. Every day she was with him, she fell a little further even though she would have sworn that wasn’t possible. Apparently her love for Gabe was a bottomless pit.

“I’m taking this cake to the table,” her mother informed her. “You, take a couple of deep breaths and get it together.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

When Ari returned to the dining room, she resolved to keep her mouth full of moist, rich dessert and shut the hell up before she did anything to alienate the guest of honor further. Luckily the mellowing properties of comfort food went a long way toward decreasing the stress level at the table.

Gabe seemed contentedly sated as he pushed his plate away. “That was fantastic, Susan.” She’d pshawed his earlier attempts at calling her Mrs. Waide.

Lilah nodded enthusiastically. “I remember the first Thanksgiving I ever had here. The food was so amazing, I couldn’t stop eating until I literally thought I was going to pop. And then she brought out the desserts. Lord knows how I managed to zip my Winter Wonderland formal dress that year.”

Susan smiled and turned to Gabe. “Do you have plans for Thanksgiving?”

His expression was skittish, and Arianne cursed silently. Had she turned him off the idea of spending time with her family? Or worse, spending time with her?

“No, ma’am,” Gabe was forced to admit. “No definite plans yet. Things are kind of up in the air for me right now.”

“Well, if you find yourself at loose ends, you’re always welcome here,” Susan said.

“And don’t feel bad if you show up at the last minute,” David said. “She makes enough food for roughly forty people, so there will be plenty to go around.”

Tanner checked his watch. “Lilah, if we want to make that movie, we should clear off a couple of these plates and get going.”

She stood, gathering dishes and utensils. “Anyone want to go with us?”

“Sounds like fun,” Arianne said. “What are you seeing? Maybe Gabe and I can join you.”

He shook his head. “I have a very early start tomorrow, so you’ll have to count me out.”

Disappointed, Arianne wondered how much of his answer stemmed from needing sleep and how much of it came from her being so frenetic tonight.

Everyone helped pitch in to clear the table, then began their goodbyes. Lilah and Tanner took off for their movie, and Arianne and Gabe left soon after so that he could take her home and get some sleep. Rachel complained laughingly that she and David might still be there come morning because that’s how long it seemed to take to gather up all of Bailey’s paraphernalia.

David agreed. “I live in terror that one of these days we’re going to be so busy checking to make sure we have the car seat, the stroller frame, the diaper bag, the pump, the binky, the toys and the bassinet that we’re going to back out of the driveway and realize we left her.”

Inside Gabe’s truck, neither of them said much.

Halfway to her house, Arianne admitted to herself that probably the best thing to do was apologize. “I’m sorry if you had a horrible time,” she said.

“It wasn’t horrible. Your family’s great,” he said neutrally. “In spite of the ‘I own a shotgun’ vibe I occasionally got from your dad.”

She laughed. “Fathers are required to look that way at their daughters’ dates. Don’t take it personally.”

Gabe stopped at a red light, resting his arms on the steering wheel. “I think that’s the first real laugh I’ve heard from you all evening. Everything else seemed a bit…forced.”

“I really am sorry,” she reiterated. “I know I was a spaz-I just couldn’t stop myself. I guess I’ve had guys over for meals and movie nights and board games with the family before, but I’ve never taken home anyone as special to me as you are.”

He gifted her with a bone-melting smile as he turned onto her street. “Put that way, it’s difficult to stay mad at you.”

“Good! Because I’d hate for you to turn down my mom’s Thanksgiving invitation just because I screwed up tonight.” She stared out the window, troubled. “You really don’t have plans?”

“No, why would I?”

Because he had a parent living in the same zip code! She knew they were estranged, but family-even family who didn’t like each other-got together for the holidays. It was ritual. Similar to people who didn’t actually belong to a church but still showed up somewhere for Easter service. She’d assumed from the way Gabe talked that he and his dad didn’t spent the holidays together, but hearing it confirmed was different.

She glanced back at him. “David was serious when he said my mom makes enough food for forty. So you could invite your dad to come, too. If you wanted.”

He slammed the truck into Park, the gears grinding discordantly. “If I wanted? What have I said or done that makes you think I want anything to do with that man?”

“But he’s the only father you’re ever going to have,” she said philosophically.

“Look, I know this is difficult for you to understand since you come from such a close-knit family, but I’m fine not having a relationship with him.”

“What if you aren’t?” she pressed, thinking about the pain she’d seen in his face the night he told her about his mom’s death. “What if he’s subconsciously the reason you stayed in Mistletoe, because you hoped that somewhere down the road the two of you could-”

“I’m not staying in Mistletoe, remember? So it’s a moot point. Look, Ari, if I’m here, I’ll have Thanksgiving with you and your family, but I’m not spoiling the day by asking that man to join us, so just drop it. Even if I did invite him, he wouldn’t come. He wants just as little to do with me as I do with him.”

“I don’t know.” Sure, Jeremy Sloan had given her the cold shoulder the other day, but there’d been a sense of shocked loss in his expression after she told him Gabe was going away. Not that the intractable man had done anything about it! “When I talked to him-”

“You talked to my father? About me?” Gabe gripped the steering wheel tightly. Since they’d already arrived at their location, she couldn’t help wondering if he was pretending it was her neck.

“I didn’t call him at home or anything. I just happened to run into him out of the blue. It seemed like a good idea to-”

“You and I have very different opinions of what constitutes a good idea. You can’t keep doing this!”

“Doing what?” she demanded, exasperated that he’d cut her off again. “Bumping into people at the post office?”

“No, trying to micromanage my life! I’m not some pet project.”

That stung. She had Gabe’s best interests at heart. She wanted him to be whole and happy and she believed he was deluding himself when he said making peace with his father wasn’t part of that. “You know that’s not how I see you,” she said, opening her door.

“Do I? You appeared on the scene suddenly telling me what to do, trying to manipulate me into making changes.”

“Damn good changes!” Even if he was being too stubborn to admit the truth. “I’ve made more improvements on your so-called life in four weeks than you have in fourteen years! And this is the thanks I get?”

He clenched his jaw. “I didn’t ask for your interference, Arianne, and I don’t want it.”

She climbed out of the truck, so furious at the way he characterized her that she almost couldn’t speak. A manipulative control freak? Is that how he saw her? Her initial impression of Gabe had been that he wasn’t in the right emotional place for a relationship, and now she suspected she’d been correct. He wasn’t used to sharing his life with anyone else. Would he ever value her input, her attempts to demonstrate how much she cared about him, or was she simply making them both crazy?

She needed to stop clinging to the idea of what they could have together and simply let him be. “The good news is, you won’t have to worry about my ‘interference’ anymore. And don’t trouble yourself over the logistics of a long-distance relationship. A clean break is probably best for everyone.”

This time, she wasn’t going to wait for him to walk away.