Mistletoe Hero

Chapter Sixteen

Gabe’s week passed with agonizing slowness, each day dragging into the next. Even the would-be bright spot of his great phone interview dimmed when he realized he wanted to share the news with Arianne. Unfortunately she wasn’t speaking to him.

He toyed with the notion of apologizing to her, convinced enough of her feelings for him that he suspected he could get her to give him another chance. But why? It was an ugly pattern in their relationship, his capitulating. She’d tried to bully him, albeit charmingly, into volunteering for the fall festival and it certainly hadn’t been his idea to participate in this Man of the Year nonsense. If you gave Arianne an inch, she didn’t just take a mile, she built a freaking highway. Right through my life.

Sure, he missed her now, but once the initial pangs had passed, he’d realize that it was better this way. He didn’t want the stress of arguing with her, of fighting to maintain the right to make his own adult decisions. In a few weeks, he’d get over her and his life could calm down again.

But now, with the possibility of running into her around every corner, he was more eager than ever to get out of Mistletoe. Even seeing her brothers was a painful reminder.

When Tanner saw Gabe seated alone at the Dixieland Diner, the man took it upon himself to drop into the booth. “You look like hell, Sloan.”

What was it with the uninvited Waides and their unsolicited opinions?

“Coincidentally enough, my sister’s had that same expression for the past four days,” Tanner added.

I don’t want to hear about Arianne. “We’re not seeing each other anymore.”

“Yeah, I got that.”

“If you sat down to read me the riot act over the breakup, you should know that she was the one who-”

“No riot act,” Tanner assured him. “I love Arianne, but God help the man she ends up with. She’s a lot to take.”

Gabe had to bite his tongue to keep from defending her.

“I can understand why you decided it wasn’t working out,” Tanner added, “but it’s a onetime decision. Now that you’ve realized you’re not a good fit for each other, stay away from her. Because if you come back and break her heart, David and I are obligated as her brothers to break your legs.”

AS GABE MADE THE DRIVE to South Carolina for his face-to-face interview, he realized that tonight was the town vote where the Mistletoe Man of the Year would be selected. He found himself irrationally grateful that he’d be in another state at the time. Not that he cared about the title-he’d abdicate to someone else in the unlikely event that he won-but he didn’t like the embarrassment of a glaring loss, either.

Arianne was clearly insane if she thought people would choose him over Nick Zeth, a fireman considered good-looking and lovable; or Dylan Echols, who had played for the Atlanta Braves and was considered a celebrity in Mistletoe! And she called me deluded? Why couldn’t she accept that just because she believed in him, she couldn’t force her opinion on other people?

Probably because she was so accustomed to getting her way.

But he felt ashamed of the barbed thought as soon as he’d entertained it. Whatever her character flaws, she had believed in him. How many people could he say that about in his life?

“Crap!” Belatedly realizing that he’d missed his exit, Gabe prepared to turn the truck around and turned up his radio to drown out thoughts about Arianne Waide.

But she crept back into his mind anyway. When he parked his truck in front of the administrative building he was supposed to report to, he could almost hear her wishing him luck. You can do it! Go away, he told the phantom cheerleader, irrationally annoyed with her perky attitude. You didn’t even want me to get the job.

True, but she’d gone through his closet anyway and told him which ties made him look sharp and what outfits just made him look as if he was trying too hard. And she’d helped him refine his résumé. She was a lot like her mother, a nurturer. He suspected that Susan Waide wasn’t shy about giving advice to her children and husband, just as he suspected that advice was often right.

Had Gabe found Arianne’s meddling more overbearing than it really was simply because he wasn’t used to anyone caring enough about him to interfere?

Disturbed by the possibility that he’d judged her too harshly, he entered the building and told himself to focus. This interview could mean a fresh start and a new life for him. Maybe even work put toward a college degree. Get your head on straight.

But Arianne was too deeply entrenched in his thoughts for him to ignore. When the interviewer discussed a traditional campus festival they held in the spring, all Gabe could think about was Arianne in her pirate costume. And out of it. When Gabe saw the desktop picture of the man’s wife and child, he couldn’t help recalling the way Arianne looked holding Bailey. She’ll make a great mom.

She’d be fiercely protective, and he imagined that any child of hers would sometimes chafe under Arianne’s insistence that she knew best, but that child would also grow up secure in the knowledge that he or she was unconditionally loved.

Gabe had spent the better part of the interview so distracted that he was almost startled when it ended.

“I think that’s all the questions we have for you,” the man behind the desk said genially. “Unless you have any more for us, I’ll let Bruce show you around the grounds some. While the hiring committee writes up their applicant recommendation, you be thinking about whether or not, if offered the job, you could see making a home here at Whisthaven.”

Home. The word was a revelation. He’d felt torn recently, trying to decide if the right home for him was Mistletoe or somewhere else. But home wasn’t a place. It was a state of being-a sense of belonging, of knowing you were loved even if the people who loved you aggravated the hell out of you, a sense of security and the knowledge that someone else had your back, even while you argued that you could take care of yourself.

Home was Arianne.

WAIDE SUPPLY WAS JUST opening for the day when Gabe strode through the doors. After a long drive back to Mistletoe, which had given him too much time to think about what he’d lost, he’d spent a sleepless night staring at his clock and waiting for this moment. Out of sheer impulse, he’d even reached once for his phone, but sanity had prevailed. If you woke a woman up at three in the morning, she was probably even less inclined to take you back. Gabe was already at enough of a disadvantage.

Arianne was setting up an end-cap display, while her father and David stood looking at some kind of paperwork at the counter. Gabe made a beeline for her, fully aware that the two Waide men had both stilled and were watching him.

David stepped forward, inserting himself between Gabe and Ari. He flashed a shark’s toothy smile. “Anything I can help you with this morning?”

Arianne got to her feet, looking tiny in comparison to her brother. It was funny, Gabe had noticed her height early on, but after a while, her larger-than-life personality made her seem a lot taller than she was.

He looked over David’s shoulder, appealing to her directly. “Can I talk to you?”

She jerked her thumb toward an open box that contained many smaller boxes of nails. “As you can see, I’m busy laying out the sales inventory.”

“I can help,” he said, probably sounding desperate and not really caring.

Her eyes flashed at him. “Teamwork isn’t really your thing, is it, Gabe? I pegged you more as someone who worked alone.”

“Maybe that’s just because it’s what I was used to. Maybe it took me longer than most to recognize a good thing when I had it.”

She bit her lip, looking beautiful and vulnerable, and Gabe considered removing David bodily from his path so that he could go hug her.

David raised an eyebrow, shooting pointed glances at Gabe’s kneecaps. “Didn’t you and Tanner have a discussion a few days ago?” he asked meaningfully. “Maybe your being here isn’t such a good idea.”

“It’s probably the best idea I’ve ever had,” Gabe countered.

Arianne had narrowed her eyes at her brother. “What do you mean, he and Tanner had a discussion? Do you two not understand that I’m a big girl now? I can take care of myself.”

Gabe couldn’t help it, he threw his head back and laughed. Both Waide siblings looked at him. He ignored David altogether and locked eyes with Arianne. “You can’t have it both ways, sweetheart. Is it the right of a loved one to interfere, or should they stay out of your private life and let you make your own choices?”

She fought a smile, sighing in resignation. “Damn. I hate it when other people are right. Dad, David, could we have a minute?”

Zachariah looked unconvinced, but David led their father away.

“Thank you,” Gabe said. “I would have said it in front of them if I had to, but this is better. Arianne, I love you.”

She pressed a hand to her abdomen, looking stunned by the bald admission. “But I’m bossy and interfering and too stubborn for my own good. I’ll drive you crazy.”

“I’ll learn to live with it,” he vowed. “Just like you have to learn to live with me withdrawing and being moody and needing time to adjust to an idea before I can embrace it as fully as you can.”

“I don’t know.” She plopped right down on the floor as if she were too drained to stand, and leaned against a shelving unit. “I feel like someone used my heart as a Ping-Pong ball, and I’m not sure I’m cut out for any more of that. A long-distance relationship-”

“Won’t be an issue. You were right when you said I like to work alone. I set my own hours, I don’t have to put up with an obnoxious boss, and I’ve already established a solid client base. I don’t think I have the patience to start over somewhere new at the bottom. I can be happy in Mistletoe…as long as I’m with you.”

“You’re sure I’m what you want?” she asked in a small voice.

He slid down next to her, taking her hands in his. “I know I said some hurtful things to you. I was angry, and you were pushing all the wrong buttons. I doubt it will be the last fight we have. But give me a chance to get better at this. I want to redeem myself.”

Actually, it was Arianne and her stubborn caring that had already redeemed him. He wasn’t the same man he was a month ago, and he was glad for that.

The happiness spread inside, until he felt lit up with it. He grinned at her. “You have to take me back. I won’t take no for an answer. I’ll follow you to your favorite restaurants, I’ll call you on the phone, I’ll nominate you for bizarre local honors…”

She beamed at him unabashedly. “Now what kind of psycho with no sense of personal boundaries would do all that?”

“The kind I love,” he said against her lips.

“I love you, too.” And then she kissed him.

He’d been right-it was exactly like coming home.