On a Snowy Night: The Christmas Basket\The Snow Bride (34 page)

L
ife had certainly taken an unexpected turn. Jenna had left Los Angeles, hoping for love and adventure in Alaska, and she'd found them—but not with the man she'd intended to meet. Now she was about to return to California. When she boarded Brad's Learjet, she would leave both her mother and her heart behind.

“You're sure this is what you want?” Lucy asked, walking out to the airstrip with her.

It wasn't, but Jenna didn't feel she had any choice. “It's what has to happen.”

“I'll keep an eye on your mother,” Lucy promised and hugged her, looking forlorn.

Jim slipped his arm around Lucy's shoulders.

“You're really leaving?” Palmer asked. He removed his hat with the dangling earflaps and stared down at the frozen snow as solemnly as if he were attending a funeral.

“I have to,” Jenna said. She couldn't stay in Snowbound,
much as she wanted to. She needed a reason and the one person who had the power to give her that had remained silent.

“I'm going to miss you,” Addy said in a low voice. He, too, had removed his hat and stared down at his muddy boots. “It isn't going to be the same without you here.”

Palmer agreed with a nod of his head. “Never had seafood spaghetti that tasted better than what you cooked for us that one night.”

“Me, neither,” Addy said.

“Thank you.” Jenna kissed Addy's forehead.

“Doesn't feel right having you leave like this…We were just getting to know you,” Palmer whispered.

“I know,” Jenna said and kissed the other man's stub-bled cheek.

“Are you ready?” Brad asked.

Jenna gave the town a final look before she boarded the plane. She hadn't said goodbye to Reid, who'd mysteriously disappeared. The moment she'd announced she was returning to California with Brad Fulton, he'd vanished. She'd hoped he'd ask her to stay, but he hadn't. That hope refused to die, though, and she'd held out until the last possible moment.

She'd just started up the steps when Reid shouted her name. She turned to see him, her heart pounding with a mixture of dread and excitement. Hurrying toward him, she didn't bother to disguise how pleased she was.

He took both her hands in his. “I can't let you go without saying goodbye.” He glanced at the plane. “Fulton will be a good husband.”

“Perhaps.” Jenna wasn't convinced she would marry Brad. He didn't truly love her. He was accustomed to working with her, to seeing her five or six days a week. He enjoyed the ease she brought to his professional and private lives. That wasn't a firm enough foundation on which to establish her future.

“You
aren't
going to marry him?” Reid asked, frowning.

She hesitated, then explained. “I've agreed to come back to work for him.”

His frown deepened. “But eventually you'll marry him.” He made it sound like an immutable law of nature—like something that couldn't possibly
not
happen.

“I don't know.” She hesitated, hoping Reid would say the words she longed to hear. When he didn't, she hung her head, defeated.

“Right,” he said abruptly. “Well…”

“Jenna,” Brad called impatiently from the plane's opening.

“I have to leave. Thank you,” she said, putting on a brave front. “You know, when we first met, I thought you were horrible.”

His grin was sheepish. “I
was
pretty detestable.”

“No,” she whispered and ran her index finger tenderly along his shaved upper lip. “You were wonderful. I might have made the biggest mistake of my life if not for you.”

Reid dismissed that, shaking his head. “You would've seen through Dalton in five minutes. You're a lot more savvy than you realize. I should never have brought you here,” he said and then with meaning added, “but I'm glad I did.”

“I'm glad you did, too.” Impulsively she hugged him and, for just a moment, closed her eyes and savored the feel of Reid's arms around her. It broke her heart that she might never experience this again. She waited, her heart in her throat, for some sign that he wanted her to stay.

“Goodbye, Jenna.” He stepped away from her.

“Watch out for my mother?”

He nodded, grinning. “She seems a little preoccupied.”

Jenna rolled her eyes and he laughed. She took in the dear, sweet faces of her friends, then walked purposefully toward the plane.

“Jenna! Jenna!” Her mother shouted from the distance
as she raced toward the plane. Pete was with her. Judging by their open coats and flapping scarves, the two had dressed quickly in an effort to catch the plane.

“Mom…” Jenna narrowed her eyes at Pete. She began to warn her mother about staying with such a man, but then changed her mind. As she'd told Lucy, Chloe was old enough to make her own decisions and live with the consequences. Jenna was through rescuing her.

“You're really leaving?” Her mother apparently hadn't believed her earlier.

“I told you I was.”

Pete stood next to her, his hand at the back of her neck and his gaze, as always, adoring.

“I'm staying.” They exchanged a long glance, obviously drunk on love. The only thing wrong with that, Jenna thought wryly, was the nasty hangover that came later.

“All right, Mother, stay,” she said in an even voice.

“I
can't
leave,” Chloe whispered, her gaze not wavering from Pete's. “I've never known this kind of happiness.”

“Yes, Mother.”

Chloe looked away. “I mean it, Jenna.”

Jenna was sure she did. “I don't doubt you, Mom. It's just that I've heard this all before.” Still, she wasn't going to list her mother's failed marriages now. More than likely, Pete didn't know a thing about any of the previous men. That was her mother's habit. She didn't see any reason to compromise a new relationship with a small thing like the truth.

“I've discovered my soul mate,” her mother said dreamily.

“Of course you have.”

“I mean it,” she insisted. “When you fall in love, you won't be so skeptical.”

That was true enough, she supposed. “You'll call me, won't you?” Jenna urged.

“She can use the phone in the office,” Reid assured her.

“Thank you.” Jenna offered him a grateful smile. She'd give her mother a week, two at the outside, and then Chloe would return to California, disillusioned, miserable—and cold. For two or three weeks afterward, she'd be an emotional wreck, waking Jenna at all hours of the day or night. Then, miraculously, Chloe would snap out of it and everything would go back to normal until the next man. And the next, and the man after that.

“Jenna,” Brad called to her a second time. “We need to leave.”

She nodded and gave each of her friends one final hug before racing up the stairs, blinded by tears.

 

Pete's store was closed for an entire week. Everyone in town was ready to complain, but on the seventh day after Jenna flew out of Snowbound, the sign stated OPEN. Apparently Pete was back in business.

Reid had to admit he was curious. Who wouldn't be? No more than half an hour after the sign appeared, everyone in Snowbound found an excuse to visit. Reid wasn't the first customer of the day. Jake had beaten him by a good ten minutes. Pete was totaling up the other man's purchases when Reid entered the store.

“ 'Morning,” Pete said, sounding more jovial than Reid had ever heard him.

Reid acknowledged the greeting with a nod.

“Anything I can help you find?” Jenna's mother asked, stepping out from behind the curtain. She looked mighty chipper herself, Reid mused.

“I was thinking of making myself a pot of chili,” he said, taken aback by her bright smile.

“He'll want kidney beans and a packet of spices,” Pete told her. “And add a package of toilet paper. I figure he must be nearly out.” Pete had an uncanny ability to keep track of all his customers' household supplies.

“Right away.” Chloe scurried behind the counter and assembled Reid's groceries.

“Chloe's agreed to be my partner,” Pete explained.

“Do you want me to put this on your tab?” she asked Reid before he could ask what Pete meant. Business partner? Marriage? Or the living-together kind of partner? He wondered what Jenna would think of
that
.

“Please.”

She nodded, and Pete smiled benevolently in her direction.

“So,” Reid said, hoping the “partners” might give him a few more details. “How's it going with you two?”

“Fabulous,” Chloe assured him.

Pete pulled her into an embrace. “Life couldn't be better.”

Reid could only hope it lasted. “Do you want to phone Jenna this afternoon?” It was an innocent enough question, but he wasn't just being neighborly. He hadn't been able to get the woman out of his mind. At the end of the day, his cabin felt empty.
He
felt empty. He didn't know what he could've said or done to persuade her to remain in Snowbound. He had nothing to give her, nothing except his heart, and that wasn't enough. He couldn't compete with everything Brad Fulton had to offer.

“I probably should call Jenna,” Chloe said. “She worries, you know.”

“I'll drive you out to the station on the snowmobile,” Pete murmured.

“See you both later, then,” Reid said, and taking his purchases with him, he left. He returned to the cabin long enough to put the ingredients for his dinner in the crock pot, then hopped on his snowmobile and drove out to the pump station.

Chloe and Pete showed up early in the afternoon. He found it difficult to be around them, constantly reminded as he was of their overwhelming happiness. Reid hadn't considered his own existence bleak or dull until he saw
Pete with Chloe. He felt like a man who didn't realize he was hungry until he stumbled upon a table sumptuously set for dinner.

“Would you dial for me?” Chloe asked, handing him a scrap of paper with the number.

Reid dialed and waited for the connection, then passed the phone to Jenna's mother.

“Don't you want to talk to her?” Chloe asked, not taking the receiver.

Reid did, more than he cared to admit.

“Hello?”

Her voice made him weak with longing. “Jenna?”

“Reid? Oh, Reid, it's so good to hear from you! Is everything all right with my mother?”

“Everything's fine. She's here now. Do you want to talk to her?”

“Of course, but…I'd like to talk to you, too.”

“Okay. I'll give you to your mother first.” He passed the phone to Chloe. It occurred to him that from the moment she'd left Snowbound, he'd been waiting for the sound of her voice. He just hadn't known it….

Absorbed by his thoughts, Reid didn't hear anything Chloe was saying. When he did start paying attention, Jenna's mother was making plans to collect her things in California and move to Alaska permanently. Apparently Jenna was objecting and the conversation wasn't going well.

“Here,” Chloe muttered, handing him back the receiver. “
You
reason with her.”

Reid preferred not to be caught between mother and daughter, but he was so anxious to talk to Jenna, he disregarded his better judgment. “What's going on?” he asked.

“Mom and Pete want to get married.”

“I see.” Pete was holding Chloe and she'd buried her head in his shoulder, weeping quietly.

“This would be her sixth marriage,” Jenna said.

“I guess practice makes perfect,” he said frivolously, immediately sorry when his remark was greeted by disapproving silence.

“They've barely known each other a week.” Jenna was definitely aghast. “A week! Reid, you've got to
do
something.”

Reid felt at a complete loss. “I don't see how I can. They're both adults and they certainly seem compatible.”

“That's an understatement if I've ever heard one,” Jenna agreed with heavy sarcasm. “Besides, when my mother gets like this, it's impossible to reason with her. I'll do my best to talk her out of it when she flies down to get her things.”

“Worth a try if you feel that strongly about it.”

“It's the best I can do for now,” Jenna muttered. “How are you?”

“Fine,” he told her heartily. “What about you?”

“Good,” she said after a moment.

“Are you working for Fulton Industries?”

“Yes.”

She didn't sound happy or excited, and selfish as it was, Reid felt downright glad.