It Must Be Christmas Read online

  She stopped eating and stared at him.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “I just mean that … well, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. You tell people you’re fine, you give of yourself, but you never really let anyone in. You don’t want to be any trouble. And you don’t want to give someone the power to really hurt you either. Because you’ve been disappointed a lot in your life. And it works but only a little because deep down you’re lonely and you need someone to give all that love to. Being a doctor is perfect. You get to help people without becoming personally involved.”

  “Wow. That’s some psychoanalysis.”

  “And that’s exactly what I’d say if I wanted to avoid the issue and turn the tables. We’re more alike than you think, Charlie.”

  “Except I did let someone in. You.”

  He hadn’t expected her to admit it, and it took him by surprise.

  “We don’t have to talk about this now,” he said. “On top of everything else.”

  “Or ever, right?” She picked up her fork again, and stabbed it into her mound of potatoes, her lips set in an angry line.

  “I didn’t come here to pile on, Charlie. Not after the day you’ve had.”

  “You pretty much said it all anyway,” she reminded him, playing with the potatoes but not eating them.

  “No, I didn’t. I didn’t say nearly enough. And I certainly didn’t say the right things.”

  Her fork stopped moving. He might have imagined it, but he thought he saw her lower lip give another little quiver before she bit down on it.

  “I went to see Nora,” he explained. “And the whole time I was watching their family all together I was thinking about you, and the fun we had together, and how easy it is to talk to you, and how much I loved kissing you … and … and how much I missed you.”

  Her chin started quivering again.

  “I was an idiot, Charlie. I let my fear of being tied down get in the way of what I really wanted. You. I told myself I didn’t want to settle down, but the truth is I’ve moved around so much, I’ve never had much luck with romance that … well, I wasn’t sure I was ready to put down roots. If I’d ever be ready.” He swallowed. “I’m probably saying this all wrong…”

  “You’re doing okay.”

  She was looking at him with luminous eyes and he pushed forward. “I love you, Charlie.”

  * * *

  Charlie hadn’t been expecting those words. Not today, not ever. And damn him for getting to her on a day she was emotionally vulnerable to start with. She blinked to clear away the moisture that had sprung to her eyes. “Don’t say that,” she whispered, her voice hoarse.

  “Why?” he asked. He walked around her desk and turned her steno chair so it was facing him, then squatted down in front of her, just like she’d done with Michelle earlier. “Why don’t you want me to say it? Because you don’t want to hear it or because you want to and you’re afraid?”

  “It’s been barely a month of you and me doing a dance and … whatever.” She fumbled the words, words she’d dreamed of hearing and that now scared her to death. He was right. Because if he said them and didn’t mean them, she was bound to get her heart broken. And if he did mean them …

  If he did …

  “Do you believe in fate, Charlie?”

  She swallowed. Hard. “I don’t know.”

  “I do.” His fingers dug into her knees as he held on to her. “I think I landed here in Jewell Cove for a reason. I think I came here because I needed to. That night at the tree lighting something happened. I turned around with that baby in my arms and saw you and nothing has been the same since.”

  She heard the echoes in her head, echoes from her past. “Make sure you keep up your marks, Charlene. Don’t forget to wear your best dress, Charlene. This is important to the family, Charlene. Don’t disappoint us, Charlene.”

  She was no better than he was. She had dreams of a family of her own and it turned out she was too chicken to act on it when she had the chance. And now here was the man of her dreams standing in front of her telling her he loved her and she was backing away. What the hell was wrong with her?

  He lifted his hand and touched her cheek. “A month isn’t very long. But it was long enough for me to come to my senses. Long enough for me to recognize that I’d met someone who made me smile again, made me laugh, made me actually look forward to the future rather than just going from day to day. Do you know how rare that is?”

  She put her hand over his and drew it away from her face, down into her lap. “Dave,” she said quietly, “it was barely a week ago when you stood in your kitchen and told me flat out that you couldn’t give me what I wanted. What changed? Why should I trust that?”

  He got up from his squatted position but held onto her hand, gave it a tug until she was out of the chair, and reversed positions so that he was in the chair and he pulled her into his lap.

  His arm was strong as it circled her, his face utterly open and sincere as he looked up at her. “Charlene.”

  She waited. He seemed to be gathering his words, and there was a sense that whatever he said next was going to be of utmost importance. Butterflies winged through her stomach and her fingers trembled. It terrified her how much she wanted to believe him.

  And then there it was, a look in his eyes that was so beautiful that it felt like her heart was melting right there in her chest. It made her breath catch and a strange sort of excitement pulse through her veins. “David,” she whispered, and reached out and placed her hand along the side of his face, feeling the stubble against her skin.

  He turned his head slightly, kissed the curve of her palm.

  “There are so many things I might have done differently,” he said, his arms still tight around her hips. “I might have not gotten together with Janice. I might have put off having kids, or stayed in the Navy. I realize that right now, I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. In Jewell Cove. With you. And that I wouldn’t be here if any of those things hadn’t happened. They all led me to you, Charlie. You are where I’m meant to be. You make my world make sense.”

  “You really mean that, don’t you?”

  “With my life. I don’t need to count weeks or months to figure it out. And it won’t be perfect all the time. I know that. I just know I want to try.”

  It won’t be perfect all the time. She rolled those words around in her head a few times, mulling them over. She thought about Michelle in the next room, struggling so hard to make decisions, thought about Josh, who’d lost his wife overseas mere weeks before she was due to return home. She thought about Lizzie’s mom, and how she’d had to be put in full-time care. Truth was, there was no such thing as perfect all the time, and perhaps that was Charlie’s problem. She’d built up this imaginary dream life to be so perfect that it was an impossible, unattainable goal.

  Instead she had a wonderful, slightly damaged, sexy, beautiful man holding her tight and asking her to give them a shot. And it occurred to her that perhaps she’d been demanding too much, because what he was offering was everything. Himself. All he asked in return was that she meet him halfway.

  “You really mean that you love me?”

  She relaxed into his arms, curling into his embrace so that her face was nestled in the curve of his neck. “Oh yes,” he answered softly. “Charlie, there was a moment. I know you remember it. You have to. A moment when we were making love and our eyes met and it was like lightning.”

  She did remember. It had been a magical, soul-deep connection beyond anything she’d ever known. It had been the moment that had given her hope that the life she longed for might be within her grasp.

  Now he was telling her it was. And she could either choose to believe him or walk away.

  She thought of what Lizzie would say right now and she laughed a little, holding on to him a bit tighter. Lizzie would tell her to stop being a chicken and take a chance, because if she didn’t, she’d always regret it.

  “Is that a good la