Winter Wedding Bells

CHAPTER THREE

AUSTIN ENDED HIS call with Security, resisting the urge to look back at the warming shed, where he’d left Julie. He peered up at the steep luge run, a chilly gust stinging his cheeks. In the sky, the enormous moon hung white and luminous. The visibility assured him nothing haunted the track but the wind. It whistled along the white pipe that wound from the top of snow-covered Mount Van Hoevenberg and ended at the spot where he sometimes crouched, radar gun in hand.

With the world championships coming up in a couple of months, the team had been pushing hard. Their world was measured in minuscule increments that amounted to monumental variations. A hundredth of a second meant the difference between international acclaim and obscurity. And he wanted each of the lugers to earn that chance.

But life guaranteed nothing.

Most of all, love. His nightstand drawer had once guarded an engagement ring and a nearly memorized proposal speech. Each time Julie promised to join him in Switzerland, he’d removed both. When she gave another excuse, he returned them to the darkness of their hiding place, his hopes banished with them—until finally they left him altogether.

Yet he’d never stop taking risks when it came to the rest of his life. Would always throw himself headlong into whatever came next. Not knowing what loomed around the bend made living in the moment exciting. If only Julie shared that philosophy. He’d begged her to join him for over a year, before he finally heard her postponements for what they were: rejection. She didn’t want his gypsy life.

Snow rose above his ankles as he approached her. She sat on a bench outside the warming hut, white and dazed looking. He couldn’t look away. Why had she fled the lodge? From what, or from whom, did she want to escape? Not that it was his business. Yet the time between them fell away when he was near the woman he’d once loved. Broken promises or not, he wanted to help. Figure out what changed since he’d encountered the bride-to-be on the trail. Sure, she’d looked preoccupied. But he’d assumed she was uncomfortable seeing him. Now he suspected the problem went deeper.

“All set?” Julie swallowed the last bite of a cheeseburger—her second—and stood. She always ate more when stressed, he recalled.

“Looks fine. Just the wind triggering the motion detectors. How about you? Ready to go back?”

Her bag of empty fast-food containers swung at her side and the moon turned in her eyes. In the crackle-cold air, she resembled an ice carving of herself. Brittle. Frozen. Chipped away one shaving at a time.

A bright white silence floated down the mountain, too big for him to burst. He tamped down the questions rising inside and waited for her to speak.

“No. Not ready,” she whispered at last, her voice snuffly. Long, dark strands whipped across her oval face, obscuring her expression. The aroma of pine, balsam and holly berry floated on the arctic current swooping from the north.

Against his better judgment, he reached her in two steps and guided them back to the bench. “What’s going on, Julie?”

Her back curved and she dropped her head, her hair falling across her face, shielding it like a curtain. “I don’t know,” she groaned into her fingers.

“Are you having second thoughts? Is your groom?” The last word tasted bitter on his tongue. Despite the years that had passed, he couldn’t picture her with anyone else. Couldn’t imagine another man holding her. Loving her the way he once had.

“I don’t know what I want. Sound familiar?” She peered up at him through strands of hair, her arms clutching her gut.

“Yes,” he blurted out, regretting his harsh reply the moment it left his mouth.

She shot to her feet. “I shouldn’t be doing this. Complaining to you, of all people. I need to go back. Face the music, or quinoa...or...or...”

He stood and twined his hands in hers, the soft pressure of her palms warming him despite the dropping temperature. Around them, ice crystals falling from trees tinkled like Christmas bells. “We’ll go back when you’re ready. No rush to face quin-whatever. I’m here for you, Julie. We were friends, once.”

“More,” she whispered, her eyes anguished and wide as they searched his.

“But you didn’t want more,” he forced himself to say. His voice firm. Steady. “You wanted Connecticut. Your home. It took me a while, but I finally understood. I’m not holding any grudges. Talk to me and maybe I can help. Give you perspective as an old boyfriend.”

“Why would you do that?” She lobbed her bag in a nearby trash can.

“Because I care.” There. The truth. Something he hadn’t admitted, even to himself, until now.

“Oh.”

A shiver swayed them.

“Did you and your fiancé argue?” He tucked a silken lock behind her ear, resisting the urge to cup her cold face.

She collapsed on the bench again. A cut-string marionette. “He gave me a picture.”

He sat and stared. Puzzled. “As in a Paint-by-Number? A velvet painting of Elvis? Classic.”

She laughed. She had a good laugh—rich, open. It rang through the hollow spaces inside him.

“I might have liked that,” she said, a wry flip to the corner of her mouth. “But the picture was of a house. One he bought for us.”

“That’s a nice surprise—” He stumbled on the last word, finally understanding. “And you hate surprises.”

She fiddled with the top button of her navy coat, drawing the lapel tight around her neck. “But it was more than that,” she said to the distant mishmash of trees that had taken centuries to grow—birch, oak, spruce. “It looked exactly like my parents’ house.”

“You love living there.”

“I know. That’s what’s crazy. When I saw it, I pictured everything. Every day of the rest of my life. And I didn’t like what I saw.” Julie turned her head toward him, and the slice he could see revealed a tense jaw and the faraway sheen of one eye.

“What about your fiancé?”

The breeze moved through laden boughs, showering the earth with snow and ice. Over the tumult, his pulse thrummed, filling his ears. Did he want her to break things off? Reopen a door for him to step through again?

As he studied her delicate profile, the answer slammed his gut, as if it’d waited, all these years, to be asked.

Yes.

He still loved Julie. Despite it all. But because of her indecisive nature, he knew he could never trust her again.

“I don’t know.”

He handed her a tissue and she swiped at her running nose. “I’m such a mess. I ruined everything. Everyone. I hurt you.” She peered upward. An under-the-lashes look at him. “Now I’m breaking Mason’s heart. My parents’. I’m a—a—succubus.”

He chuckled. Couldn’t help it. She’d learned that term in a mythology class and they’d found every excuse to work it into conversations the entire semester.

But his mirth dried up when she dashed a tear away.

He cradled her face with both hands and met her eyes, gazing at her steadily until her breathing steadied. “You’re not a succubus. What you are is confused. Indecisive. Cautious. A bit of a glutton. And a pack rat with appalling taste in music, if I’m honest.”

A short laugh ended in a watery gulp. “Stop sweet-talking me.”

“Haven’t even gotten started.” He smiled, warming to the topic. “You’re also smart, funny—especially when you don’t mean to be—caring, loyal, and you have the biggest heart of anyone I’ve ever met.”

“Oh, Austin.” She sighed. Her eyes glistened, tears suspended on her eyelashes. “What am I going to do?”

“What you want. Life is full of second chances. Give yourself one.”

“Even if it means hurting other people?”

His thumbs skimmed the soft underside of her chin. “Off like a bandage. One rip and it’s over. Trust me. It’s kinder that way.”

“Unlike us.” Her mouth twisted. “I held on until you peeled away.”

He leaned close. Breathed in the vanilla scent of her, sharp, sweet, wonderful. “I never really left.”

Before he could stop himself, he weaved his fingers through Julie’s hair, lifted it so that it fell strand by strand. She turned her head and only a breath separated her lips from his arm. Time seemed to hold still. Every minute spanned a million years.

Austin cupped Julie’s cheeks and her eyes closed. Moonlight ran down her neck like water. She moved closer, her face tilting, lips opening and, unable to resist, he captured her mouth and kissed her. The sweet taste of her exploded on his tongue, electricity jolting wildly through him, heat bursting in his belly.

The years apart dissolved and he lost himself in the moment. Everything gone but the feel of her pressed to him, her lips against his jaw as he nibbled on her ear.

“I’ve missed you,” he groaned, realizing he’d been fooling himself into thinking he hadn’t. “I’ve wanted to do that for so long.” He rested his forehead against her temple and breathed. “So long. You’re just—”

When he stroked her jaw, she jerked back, blinking.

It seemed as if she was going to say something, but no words came when she opened her mouth. She dropped her head in her hands, unable to conceal how her features had all squeezed shut, or the pain leaking out of every part of her face.

Austin heard a rustling in the bushes. A pair of red eyes blinked before vanishing again—a witness to his crime. Austin’s stomach churned with guilt.

“No. No no no no no.” Julie bolted to her feet and backed away before fleeing to the parking lot so fast it looked as if her feet were on fire.

Knife stab, center chest. Did he say knife? It was more like an ice pick. He felt pinned to this awful moment like a dead insect. Why had he kissed her? Taken advantage of her weak moment?

His shoulders bowed, laden with guilt.

* * *

JULIE KICKED OFF her shoes the next day, drew her knees to her chest and rested her heels on the edge of one of the hotel’s overstuffed library chairs. Her eyes drifted across the books packing the floor-to-ceiling shelves, the worn leather jackets as old as the lodge. How many lives did they chronicle? Love stories that triumphed and those that failed...like hers...again.

Air spun out of her. It disturbed the dust motes floating in the column of early afternoon light emitted by the gingerbread stained-glass windows. With a warm fire sparking to life in the brick hearth, a wicker basket of white-paper birch logs beside it, this should be a soothing spot. Exactly why she’d escaped here after ending her engagement with Mason, the two of them breaking the news to their shocked parents and announcing the canceled wedding to the bridal party and guests assembled for breakfast. Their event planner, Grace, had lived up to her name, calmly assuring them that she would handle everything and not to worry.

But how could Julie stop worrying when Mason looked so flattened? It broke her heart to hurt him, but he deserved better than a woman who’d kiss another man just days before her wedding.

Out in the hall, a group of adults and children passed by the open doorway singing “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” Julie sank into the chair, grateful when they passed without missing a note. Christmas. How happy they sounded. The merry family she’d longed to form...only not with Mason, after all.

After tossing and turning all night, she’d showered and dressed. Exhausted but certain. Kissing Austin last night had been a mistake in every way but one. It had proved that she couldn’t marry one man when she so easily returned the affections of another. It wasn’t fair to Mason.

She’d blamed jitters for her doubts. The version of married life she’d glimpsed in the picture, making her question what she’d wanted...

In Austin’s arms, however, her ambivalence evaporated. For a heart-stopping instant the world clicked into place, her worries about the unknown silenced as she reveled in that moment with him. Everything in her had gone quiet and peaceful and right...like walking into a familiar house where she recognized everything. Could find her way around in the dark...

She pressed her palms against her eyelids, and her tense shoulders rose. She was a horrible, horrible person. Had betrayed Mason, a wonderful man. Reality was crushing and the world was a wrong-size shoe. How could anyone stand it? How could she?

An old lit class quote came to her. The heart wants what it wants.

Nevertheless, she knew better than to selfishly hurt others.

On the other hand, if she hadn’t kissed Austin, she might have strung Mason along as she had Austin, drowning them both in her uncertainty. No. As Austin had said, better to get the pain over with fast. As much as it had hurt to tell Mason, a small part of her felt better for the clean break, especially after she’d told him the truth about kissing Austin.

For Mason, that was nonnegotiable—as it should be. He deserved better and he’d find it.

Now, if only she could find Alexis, who was still grappling with her transit issues and wouldn’t arrive until later today. She desperately needed to talk to a friend, but even Claire had been unavailable, unable to leave Meghan who’d woken with a bad asthma attack.

Julie pulled down the afghan draped across the chair top and tucked herself into its square corners.

When she’d left Mason, his cousins were corralling him into a snowshoeing trip and he’d looked more than ready to get away. Since he missed today’s checkout time, he, his family and her father would stay another night and leave by eleven tomorrow.

It stung that her dad would abandon her. But she understood when he’d explained that he felt guilty about leaving the free medical clinic a doctor short now that the wedding was off. He’d insisted she and her mother stay until Christmas Eve, however, since the inn’s spa treatments helped her mother’s MS symptoms. At least some good would come out of this, he’d sighed, after giving her a kiss.

At the low squeak of an opening door, she turned. Noelle pushed a stainless-steel cart laden with domed plates and a teapot. She wore a gorgeous outfit. A striped straight skirt. Vintage floral sweater. Red leather belt. Paisley scarf championed with attitude. Her auburn hair swished around her beautiful, serene face and filled Julie with longing. What she would give for that inner peace.

“I’m on break and thought I’d stop by. Bring you some tea and scones.”

Julie returned the woman’s kind smile, her mouth trembling with the effort. “I’m not hungry, but thanks.”

Still, her nose twitched at the tart cranberry smell when Noelle drew closer and pulled off a metal top to reveal a grilled panini and Caesar salad, as well.

“Just a little something? Our chef, Dominic Vitelli, made these. He had that cooking show...”

Julie perked up. Of course, she’d heard of the celebrity chef. He’d hosted a reality food show, one of her favorite programs. She grabbed a warm scone and nibbled on the crunchy top, the sweet, sharp taste making her suck in her cheeks and savor the treat before she swallowed.

“Wow. Really good. I can’t believe I’m eating something made by Dominic Vitelli. Why is he in Lake Placid? Did his show get canceled?” Despite her problems, her curiosity was piqued.

“May I?” Noelle gestured to the seat opposite Julie and sat when she nodded. “Personal issues, I think, but he seems happy. How about you? Are you doing okay? I’m sorry about what happened.”

The baked good dried on Julie’s tongue. She poured two cups of tea and gulped the orange-flavored liquid before answering. Not that she knew what to say...

The events leading up to this crisis seemed unreal. Fantastical. Not at all the measured, logical steps she’d used to march through most of her life. Why had she kissed Austin?

Because I wanted to came the unbidden thought.

Her racing thoughts roiled inside her and flew from her mouth before she could stop them.

“I kissed another man last night.”

Julie studied Noelle’s face, wanting the condemnation she deserved. The desk clerk’s expression, however, remained serene.

“Austin Reynolds.”

Julie gaped at the woman. How did she know?

Noelle patted Julie’s knee. “I saw him come in shortly after you left for your jog and he looked as if he’d seen a ghost. Then, when I went out to my car last night, I watched you leave together. Guessed you were friends or more.”

“More.” Julie traced the rim of her porcelain teacup. “We were supposed to get married after college but I kept putting it off. At first I needed to stay home to care for my mother. I planned to eventually join him on the road and follow his team as a photographer. It was a passion of mine, even though I’d gotten the accounting degree my parents wanted.”

Noelle studied Julie over her raised cup. “But you never went.”

Julie crammed another bite into her mouth, chewing and thinking. “I wanted to.”

“So what stopped you?”

A log popped, making both women jump. Julie stared at the growing flames, the heat blazing along the calves exposed by her knee-length skirt.

“I don’t know.” Julie shoved back the hair that slipped out of her low bun. “Fear maybe. Doubt. But I never stopped loving him.”

The truth of each word stung, realization buzzing through her. Strange how she could be so honest with Noelle—more truthful than she’d been with herself.

“And now you have another chance.” Noelle leaned forward and grasped Julie’s clammy hands. “Don’t squander it.”

Something in Julie’s chest collapsed. “I could never be with someone like him permanently.”

“And what’s he like?”

“Spontaneous, daring...terrifying.”

“Why not?”

“Because I never know what’s going to happen around him. What our future would be like. After last night, I knew what I didn’t want, but I still don’t feel comfortable with the unknown.” Her heart left, hitchhiked right out her body, caught the gondola ride up Whiteface and leaped from the pinnacle.

“It keeps things interesting,” observed Noelle. She pulled out her buzzing cell phone, checked the message and then clicked it off.

Julie compared her whirlwind days with Austin to the comfort of her routine with Mason.

“Yes,” Julie admitted. “It did.”

“Let me show you something.” Noelle scrolled to a screen on her cell phone and handed it to Julie. “That’s my ten-year-old. Josh.”

Julie stared at the sandy-haired boy, and her lips curved at his impish grin. More freckles than skin covered his thin face and cowlicks sprouted from his hairline. His green eyes resembled his mother’s. Otherwise, he must take after his father. A quick peek at Noelle’s ring finger revealed a vintage-set diamond.

“His father and I met at an eighth grade Sadie Hawkins dance. I’d asked a boy who was more interested in my best friend. Ted went because his younger neighbor wanted to go to her first dance and couldn’t work up the nerve to ask anyone else.”

A wistful smile lifted Julie’s mouth. “Sweet. And you’ve been together ever since?”

Noelle set down her teacup and folded her hands on her lap. “Nope. We broke up after high school graduation. He’d signed up for the military and didn’t want any ties back home since he planned on going into the Special Forces. Said he loved me but had to put all his focus there.”

“That’s so sad.” Julie stared down at the boy again, understanding dawning. “And then you found out you were pregnant.”

“Yes.”

“And he didn’t come home after you told him?” Worry took hold. “Was he...was he...hurt?” Mason’s brother nearly lost his life fighting in Afghanistan. They’d agonized for almost a month before the doctors declared his critical injury stable.

Noelle half laughed, half sighed, an air-filled exclamation of jumbled emotions. “No. I just never told him.”

“What?” Julie stared at the sensible-looking woman. How could she have held back that information? “Why?”

“I thought he didn’t care. Wasn’t sure if he’d want me and the baby. I was afraid to try.”

Julie squirmed, the similarity to her past with Austin hitting its mark.

“So he still doesn’t know?”

A tiny smile tucked itself into the corners of Noelle’s mouth. “We met again at a friend’s Thanksgiving dinner three weeks ago. Although his parents moved away after he graduated, he came back while on leave this year to look up old buddies.”

“Was Josh there?” Julie scanned the photo again.

Noelle’s smile faded. “Yes. It didn’t take Ted long to put everything together and let me know exactly what an idiot I was for never telling him. He’d regretted breaking up the moment he finished basic training. He was hurt when I ignored the letters he sent. He would have married me then if he’d known.”