Christmas in Eternity Springs (31 page)

The intensity of the yearning that filled her at the idea of living permanently with the Lancasters at Three Bears shocked her. The feeling stayed with her as they went horseback riding and while they showered together afterward, then packed to leave.

When her bags were ready, she stood at the window gazing out at the incredible view. She heard Jax exit the other bedroom and set his suitcase beside hers near the suite's doorway. Without turning around, she said, “This is a breathtaking spot. Thank you for bringing me here.”

“My pleasure.” He walked up behind her and wrapped his arms around her, holding her against him. They stood without speaking for a bit, then Jax said, “This weekend has been one of the best weekends of my life.”

She smiled. “Same for me, Jax.”

“So where do we go from here?”

Outwardly, she went still, but her pulse began to thunder. “What do you mean?”

“This no-strings fling of ours hasn't turned out quite like I'd imagined.” He turned her around and stared down into her eyes. “I have feelings for you, Claire. Strong feelings. I know that wasn't our deal, and I should probably keep my mouth shut about it, but I want to be honest.”

Honest.
A lump formed in her throat, and she swallowed hard.

“You matter to me, Claire.”

“You matter to me, too, Jax.”

He exhaled a heavy breath. “Okay, then. That takes us back to my question. Where do we go from here? I'm teetering right at the edge of the deep end of the pool here. I can probably still take a step back if I need to do that. The fact is, we have a couple of obstacles that stand in the way of a relationship. We'd be stupid to ignore that.”

Obstacles. “You're talking about Nicholas?”

“Actually, I don't see my son as a problem. A consideration, definitely. I think we need to be careful that we don't dangle a dream in front of him and then snatch it away.”

“A dream?”

“A mother. We've been careful so far not to let him see that we're anything more than friends. Before we change that particular status quo, I need to know where we stand obstaclewise.”

“And those obstacles are?”

“My career and your business. I can't be a handyman all my life. I still need to provide for my son, so I still need to leave Eternity Springs after school is out. Here's the million-dollar question. How settled are you in Eternity Springs, Claire?”

Million-dollar question? How about twenty million? She bit back a little hysterical giggle.

Nervous now, she pulled out of his arms and began to pace. What did she say to him? How much truth did she tell?

How much do you want a life with him?

A lot. She wanted a life with Jax and Nicholas as badly as she'd ever wanted anything.

You have to tell him. You can't keep your secret any longer. You have to trust him. He's not Landon.

He's not Landon.

She drew a deep, bracing breath. “Jax, I love Eternity Springs, but I don't have to stay there. For the right reason, I would be willing to leave.”

“Am I the right reason?”

“You could be.”

A fierce, bright look entered his eyes. He grinned and took a step toward her, but Claire held up her hand, signaling him to stop. “I have more to say.”

“Okay.”

“Like I said, I'd be willing to move, but you should know that if you and I worked out, it wouldn't be necessary.”

“What do you mean?”

She took a deep, bracing breath, then said, “Jax, I'm wealthy.”

His smile froze. “Wealthy.”

“Yes.”

He slipped his hands into his pockets, the light in his eyes dimmed. “Okay. Well. ‘Wealthy' means different things to different people. Maybe you could define it a little better for me?”

She wasn't exactly sure why, but Claire felt insulted. “I could probably buy this resort. With cash.”

“Holy shit.” He literally took a step back, and when he finally spoke again, his entire demeanor had changed. He accused, “You never told me.”

“I'm telling you now.” Claire felt tears sting at the back of her eyes.

Jax took another step backward. He turned and looked out the window and remained pensively silent for an eternity. When he finally spoke, it was to spit a curse worthy of the sailor he'd once been.

That put Claire's back up. “Excuse me?”

“It puts a whole new spin on things,” he said, his eyes blazing with sudden anger. “I've been down this road before and, frankly, I didn't like the view.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“The imbalance in our individual financial situations is what doomed my marriage.”

“So?”

“It's a bitch of a thing to deal with.”

She wasn't Lara Hardcastle. She got that his wife was a spoiled brat, but Claire had never acted that way around him. Hadn't she proven herself? He was being irrational and a jerk for no reason.

“I wish you'd told me before this, Claire.”

I wish you weren't such a jackass.

She folded her arms and pasted a fake smile onto her face. “It really wasn't any of your business before now, was it? We weren't in a relationship. We were having a fling. A no-strings, mistletoe fling.”

He scowled and rubbed the back of his neck.

Claire continued, “Only when we started to discuss changing the parameters of our relationship did it become relevant. And now you know, and so do I. It's been fun, Jax, but me being wealthy … well, it's obvious that the obstacle is insurmountable. I'm glad we had this talk. So, shall I call for a bellman now?”

He ignored the question and said, “Wait a minute. Wait just a minute. That sounds like … what … are you ending this?”

“Our fling?” Claire was proud of her nonchalant shrug. “I can go either way on that. I enjoyed the sex. Now that we've cleared the air about any potential emotional entanglements, I don't see why we couldn't continue as we have been.”

It was a lie, but she'd figure a way to get out of it if he called her bluff. “Of course, our chaperone will be back from Seattle, so opportunities will be limited. Since I'll be moving back to Baby Bear—”

“What?” he demanded.

“The work there is finished, isn't it?”

“Well, yes. It's been finished for two weeks.”

“I was tied up with the Twelve Dogs of Christmas reception, but I have time to move now, a little gap between now and the start of the Christmas season.”

A muscle worked in Jax's jaw. “You're just pissed because I'm pissed that you weren't honest with me. Now you're trying to rile me up even more by saying you're going to move out.”

No. She was trying to hold her tears at bay. “Honestly, Jax, I'm looking out for Nicholas. Your comment about a mother struck home. I think we've been playing house a little too realistically, and it's better for all of us, Nicholas in particular, that we redefine our boundaries. Now, about the bellman?”

“I'll carry the damned bags down,” he groused, marching toward the door. He wrenched it open, gathered up the bags, and banged his way out of the room.

With great gentleness, Claire shut the door behind him. Then she leaned her back against it and allowed the tears to fall.

*   *   *

Jax needed time to rein in his temper. The woman had totally blindsided him. He had known she wasn't destitute. She had a lot of green tied up in inventory at her shop. But lots of times small-business owners had all their assets wrapped up in their business. If Eternity Springs had been Aspen or Vail, he might have wondered. But it wasn't. It was tiny little almost-off-the-map Eternity Springs. And she'd never acted like a society princess. She'd never acted like someone who could buy him and sell him a dozen times over.

Wealthy. Claire Branham was wealthy with a capital
W
.

He'd fallen for another wealthy woman.

Frustration rolled through him like a big black wave. Wouldn't it be easier to stick a knife in his heart now and get it over with?

Been there, done that. Lost the custody fight because of it.

Because he needed to blow off steam, a full half hour passed before he returned to their suite, ready to calmly discuss the situation. Claire was nowhere in sight. His name was on the outside of a note lying on the coffee table. He picked it up, read it, and about a million pounds of torque flooded into his jaw.

The damned woman had bailed on him.

Under the circumstances, she'd written, she thought that a four-hour drive would be uncomfortable for them both. She'd find her own way back home.

“Probably phoned in an order for a Rolls-Royce and is having it delivered,” he muttered, quitting the suite.

He unloaded her bags from his truck and left them with the bellman. He'd kept a heavy foot on the gas pedal and made the four-hour trip to Eternity Springs in three hours and twenty-seven minutes.

He picked up Captain from the Cicero house, thanked them graciously for watching him, and drove home to Three Bears Valley, leaving Tinsel with the Raffertys for Claire to retrieve. Captain proved to be a good listener, but Jax's temper hadn't subsided much by the time he reached Mama Bear. So the first thing he did upon arriving was to take down every last piece of mistletoe and throw it in the garbage.

Then he packed up all her stuff and hauled it over to Baby Bear. “Just being helpful, after all,” he murmured to Captain as he left the key to the cabin on the kitchen table. “Gotta define those boundaries.”

Back home, he grabbed his toolbox and headed for Papa Bear. An hour of swinging a hammer helped, but after he showered and went scrounging in the empty refrigerator for something to eat, he muttered, “Screw it.”

He drove back into town to grab a burger and a beer at Murphy's Pub and ended up playing pool with Brick Callahan until close.

A light was on at Baby Bear when he came home. He glanced around the clearing for a Rolls. Nothing. Not a Jag or a Maserati, either.

“A chauffeured limousine, then,” he'd said to Captain. Or else she'd sent the Rolls back for a different color.

He found her key to Mama Bear on his kitchen table. He kicked the plastic trash can across the kitchen and went to bed. Alone. Lonely.

Damn woman.

After a fitful night's sleep, he awakened in a foul mood and spent the two-hour drive to the airport trying to talk himself out of it before Nicholas arrived. If he were being totally honest with himself, he would admit that he could understand her keeping quiet about her money. But the way she'd turned up her nose and used that snippy little tone when she calmly announced she was leaving him and moving back to Baby Bear rubbed in his craw. Then, to run off and hide rather than ride home with him—that really took the cake.

Jax was pissed, and underneath the anger, he was sad.

Dammit, he'd been falling in love with her.

And she was rich.

Really rich.

Son of a bitch.

A part of Jax recognized that he'd overreacted to her news. But she'd darned sure overreacted to his reaction, too. If she hadn't decamped from their room while he'd been busy blowing off his first head of steam, then maybe they wouldn't have reached the key-trading stage.

The whine of a jet engine drew his notice, and he lifted his gaze to the sky to see the private Cessna that was ferrying his son home approaching from the west. “Let it go, Lancaster.”

His boy was coming home. He was coming home and he deserved to have a father who wasn't as grouchy as the Grinch. He would have questions about Claire and Jax needed to be ready for them.

What answer would he give about why Claire wasn't here to meet him? Because Nicholas would expect that. Claire had been right about the whole playing-house thing.

He'd tell the truth. Claire had to work today. Except, did she ever really have to work? He wasn't sure why, but something about the way she'd snotty'd all up made him think that her money might put Lara's family's to shame.

If that's the case, then why did she work so hard at Forever Christmas? Retail wasn't for the faint of heart, and from everything he'd seen, Claire did work at it harder than most.

The plane landed and taxied to a stop. It took a good ten minutes for the ground crew to get stairs in place and the hatch to open, but when it did, Nicholas was first off the plane.

Jax's heart swelled. He'd missed the squirt. The boy started talking long before Jax could hear him.

“… took me to the market and watched 'em throw the fish. Then we went to the Space Needle. I'm taller than Trevor now. And Mimi made chocolate chip cookies. Pops took us to a Seahawks game! They won!”

“That's awesome,” Jax said, giving his son a fierce hug. “I'm sorry you had such a terrible time.”

“I didn't have a terrible … oh. You're teasing me.”

“Yeah.” Jax ruffled the boy's hair, then shook Brian Hardcastle's hand. The two men visited for a few moments and finalized their plans for the Hardcastles' visit for Thanksgiving. Then Nicholas hugged his grandfather good-bye and asked Jax if they could stay and watch the Cessna take off. Jax agreed and they grabbed a sandwich in the terminal and found a spot where they could watch the planes.

After Brian's plane was airborne, Jax and Nicholas headed for his truck. Nicholas asked the question that Jax had anticipated. “Where's Miss Claire? I thought she'd be here to meet me, too.”

“She had to work, Nicholas.”

Actually, that wasn't precisely true, was it? The woman
chose
to work.

He couldn't argue that she didn't dedicate herself to the activity, either. He wondered why. What would make her work so hard at her business when she didn't have to do it? He wondered if he'd ever have the opportunity to find out.

The boy continued to rattle on about his trip. His grandparents had certainly packed a lot into the visit. Nicholas finally wound down an hour into the trip home and fell asleep. Jax appreciated the peace and quiet, and yet, without his son's chatter he returned to his brooding.