“You—were getting married?” The news blindsided him even after he’d given it time to sink in.
“Yes.” She drew her knees up to her chest under the covers.
He’d started a fire almost an hour ago and the scent of hickory smoke wafted through the cabin along with the fragrance of fresh-cut pine from the garland draped over the wood mantel. The night had been just about perfect until she’d chosen to cut him off at the knees with that news. News which, apparently, he’d have to drag out of her now.
“When I wrote to you, I asked if you were still unattached.” He planned to handle this one like a homemade explosive device.
That is to say, he wasn’t touching it until he’d tiptoed around it first.
“And I wouldn’t have come here if I’d been involved with anyone. Even if you had planned to sleep in your own bed.”
She shot him a smile and he relaxed. Marginally.
“So what happened? Did you break things off?” He couldn’t imagine anyone walking away from her—that is, unless the military had tapped him to serve overseas for twelve months at the minimum.
“I realized I didn’t love him. At least, not the way I was supposed to.”
Listening to her talk about some other guy didn’t exactly fulfill Jared’s agenda of making this a Christmas to remember. He’d invited her up here to revisit one of the best memories of his life and take away the emptiness of the Christmases ever since they’d met. But color him a sucker for punishment because he had to know more.
“So who is this guy? Someone you work with?”
She shook her head. “I met him at a charity golf tournament. He’s a professional golfer. Sort of laid-back.”
“Sounds too tame for you.” Although, if Jared were honest about it, that’s exactly the type of guy he pictured her taking up with after he left Savannah. Some rich Southern boy who would inherit an old mansion like the one she’d grown up in. Jared had seen her mother’s place on their ride back to Heather’s apartment that night after they’d left the bar.
“I’m not exactly a wild woman. You’ve seen my linen business. I sell pretty pieces of history. Very sedate stuff.”
“That doesn’t make you sedate.” He brushed her hair back from her face, wondering how she could be blind to the things he saw in her after knowing her for such a short time. “People like being around you because you’re a live wire. And selling antique linens wasn’t enough for you, I noticed, since you expanded your business eighteen months after it began. Who knows how much your company might expand in five or ten years? That doesn’t define you. You are as passionate about your work as you are about the rest of your life, and that makes people respond to you. Trust me, your golfer would have been in over his head.”
Which made him realize that he was no better suited for her than this guy she’d dumped. But it also reminded Jared that if he let her go back to Savannah alone this time, he would never have another chance with her. It had been a miracle no one had snapped her up for good before now.
His chest tightened at the thought because, damn it, he wanted a second chance with her and he would do whatever it took to keep her here after this weekend.
“I like seeing myself through your eyes.” She tilted her head to lay her cheek against his arm as he sifted his fingers through her hair. “It sure beats my family’s view of me as the most capable and responsible one in the gene pool. But enough about me. Are you going to tell me why you sent me that invitation after all these years?”
And the hits kept on coming.
Just when Jared thought he had a grip on the currents at work here tonight, Heather changed the whole playing field. Now he needed to figure out—should he play it cool to keep her from running? Or gamble everything and confess that he was hoping for a Christmas miracle with this reunion ?
* * *
After the incredible way they’d made love tonight, and all the emotions this man could churn inside her with one sizzling look, Heather figured she owed it to him to at least ask why he’d wanted to see her again.
She couldn’t ditch him in the middle of the night if there was any hope of a compelling desire to be with her. Three simple words—I missed you—had opened her heart to other possibilities.
“I always regretted that I didn’t say goodbye to you.” He stared into the flames crackling in the stone hearth across from the bed. He looked a million miles away.
Or maybe just five years into the past.
“I regretted that, too.” She didn’t mind admitting it, at least not now that he had confessed it first.