A Christmas Affair: A Seaside Cove Romance (Seaside Cove Romance Series Book 1) (10 page)

"You
want
a relationship with me?" Molly said as she tied the belt around her waist.

"Yes. I mean no. I mean," Jack took a deep breath and ran his hand through his hair. "It doesn't matter what I want. All that went out the window ten years ago."

When I ruined myself in your eyes.

Jack opened the door and walked into the cold carrying the pieces of his Santa suit in one hand. He barely noticed the blast of the winter on his bare arms.

Molly ordered a new Mrs. Claus dress that evening, promised that it would be there before the next weekend. Unfortunately, for that rest of that weekend she would still have to wear the itchy red jacket.

Jack did not meet her at her store that Sunday like he had Saturday. She assumed he would not. Not after what happened between them the day before. Her stomach was in knots on the way to Santa's Workshop hoping he would be there. She tried to tell herself it was just about having to find a new Santa, but she wanted to be near him. When she reached the front door to the Boughmans store, she crossed her fingers and pushed the glass open.

Jack was there dressed as Santa. Molly felt her body relax, but then immediately tensed up again as she realized this just meant she might have to deal with him being angry with her all day. Jack stood next to the Santa chair in deep conversation with Brian.

"Mrs. Claus!" Brian said walking towards Molly and extending his elbow. "A sight for sore eyes."

Molly rolled her eyes, but she placed her hand on Brian's elbow. "You mean a sight to create sore eyes."

Brian laughed a little, and Molly stole a glance of Jack. He was not looking at her, but had his eyes on the front door as the crowd began to line up outside.

"I'm actually here with some bad news." Brian patted Molly's hand.

"What?" Molly whipped around to face Brian, bad news hand delivered from a policeman was never something you wanted to hear. What could it be?

"The man that was outside your store the other night. His name is Mark McGinley and he is a person of interest in a stabbing upstate."

Molly's eyes grew wide and the room spun around her. "Person of interest, does that mean he did it?"

"You know courts, they don't want to say it just yet... there could be any number of reasons why he is a person of interest," Brian said. Molly looked at Jack. He was glaring at her with a cold stare. He was so mad at her he did not even care about this situation. "We don't think he’s around here still. Pretty sure he is long gone in fact. But, I needed to tell you anyway. Since you had the run in with him the other night. In case he does show back up, you'll know he's not a threat to be messed around with."

Molly nodded as Brian continued to talk, but the words seemed to slip in one ear and out the other. Jack stood up and rested a stiff hand on Molly's shoulder. "Nothing is going to happen Mols. No way he'd hang around here after gaining Brian's attention the other night."

The heat from Jack’s hand on her burned. She wanted to turn around and grab him, make him understand. But she stood still and tried to focus on what Brian was saying.

Brian spoke a little longer, made them promise to call him immediately if there was any kind of problem, or even a hint of McGinley. He left as the Workshop opened. The wave of children passing through the room made the day fly by quickly. Molly's mind was not static all day. It bounced between the night before with Jack to the possibility of having someone wanted for a crime so violent in town. Molly stole glances of Jack as the day passed, wishing he would talk to her. But outside of some friendly Mr. and Mrs. Claus banter for the kids, he ignored her.

When the day was finally through, Molly thought she might have a chance to speak to him. "Jack, we need to talk."

"Oh yeah?" Jack asked as he quickly moved through the room cleaning off the pieces of the workshop the children had played with all day.

"About us, about what's happening," she said stepping in front of him. Without missing a beat, he side stepped around her.

"There is no us."

"Last night-"

"Last night was a mistake. Good thing we didn't take it too far. Don't worry Mols, I won't touch you again." Jack threw the rag he held into the corner. "Are you good to finish up?"

Without waiting for an answer, he was out the front door. As it slammed behind him Molly felt the familiar sting of tears in her eyes, but she pushed them away. She refused to cry today. She was crying too often for the holiday season. And what did he mean he would not touch her again? That was all Molly could think about, was his hands on her.

Molly went to work straightening up the room to prepare it for the following weekend. She stopped by the mirror as she finished and inspected her face for too obvious of a sign that she was upset. Then she headed back to her shop. She got back just as Rachel finished closing out the register for the night.

"How was today with Jack?" Rachel wiggled her eyebrows and made a thrusting motion in the air with her hips. Despite Molly's sadness, she allowed herself to laugh at her friend for a moment. Then the moment was gone, and Molly felt the break in her heart again.

"Nothing like last night," Molly said quietly. She had confided in Rachel the moment she returned from the Workshop the night before about what happened between her and Jack, and how he suddenly got mad and stomped out the door. "He's hot and cold so much, I can't tell what I'm going to get one minute to the next."

Molly slumped onto the seat behind the counter.

"Why don't you just march in there, strip off all your clothes, and demand he take you to bed?" Rachel asked. Molly wished she could say her friend was joking, but she knew Rachel would do just that if in the same situation.

"I can't," Molly said feeling annoyed.

"And why not?" Rachel asked tapping her fingers on the counter. "When Brian is being stingy and weird I always-"

"That's the problem," Molly said loudly. "You are sleeping with a married man. You don’t know how people in normal relationships act. You don’t know what it’s like to be in love with a man who won’t be with you; for reasons other than he already promised his heart to someone else.”

"Brian is going to leave his wife," Rachel said quietly. "He loves me."

"You know what? I've been hearing that for like a year, and so have you. I used to feel bad for you, now I just feel bad for Bianca. His poor wife, do you ever think of her? She is just sitting around, feeling sorry for herself. Waiting for Brian to come home to her," Molly was almost yelling now. She tried to bite her tongue, to do anything to stop the words from coming out of her mouth. But they flew out with such a force, Molly had no control over them. "You are his side piece of action, nothing more. He's never leaving her."

Rachel looked as though she had been slapped, and Molly could almost see the joy that usually resided in her best friend's eyes drain away. "What did I do to piss you off?"

Molly did not look at her friend but instead glanced around her shop. Suddenly, all the decorations reminded her of Santa's Workshop, and the life she would never have with Jack. With a pit in her stomach, she realized she had never completely given up hope on Jack. Not even in the early years before she learned that Izzie had lied on prom night. And now she had to spend all of December with him while he ignored her. While he got ready to move away.

Molly walked over to the CD player and turned the music off. "I'm sick of Christmas shit."

"Now I know you have a fever," Rachel said adding a touch of lightness back into her voice. Molly knew her friend was attempting to cheer her up, but it was not going to work this time.

"I just want to be alone," Molly groaned refusing to be comforted.

"Fine." Rachel bundled her lanky body into her coat and scarf, keeping her back towards Molly. "Did Brian come talk to you earlier? About that guy from the other night?"

"Yeah." Molly refused to add more to that. She did not want to tell her friend that she was scared, or sorry for taking her frustrations out on her.

"Okay, well I'm going for the night. Get a good night's sleep Molly, try not to wake up such a bitch." Rachel slammed the door on her way out.
Well that's two people who slammed the door in my face tonight.

Molly checked all the locks and dragged herself upstairs to bed.

###

Molly felt as though she was on autopilot for the next week. She apologized to Rachel for their argument and the friends made up. As each day passed though, she felt more distant from Mrs. Claus and the Dickens Village. She forced herself to put on a happy face each day to talk to her holiday shoppers. No matter how much she pushed thoughts of Jack away though, he was all that was on her mind.

He was moving.
Moving!

How could she not have known? More importantly, how could he have touched her like that knowing that he would be gone soon? It felt like punishment. Molly's punishment for her doubt in him all those years ago. How was she supposed to know it had been Chad, not Jack, to attack Izzie? Izzie lied to her, and she was so convincing. Jack had been following Izzie around in the weeks before the attack, but he never told Molly why!

I'm not a mind reader!

Jack had not even been interested in letting her explain about the Jeremy situation. Instead, he decided to ignore her. Was he really that stubborn? Or was it just more punishment, more mind games, because he was angry about something that happened ten years ago? Was the connection she felt to him faked on his half?

Thursday night after her shop closed for the evening, Molly pulled the new Mrs. Claus costume out of the box and tried it on. Not sexy, not flattering in the least. But better than Mrs. Boughman's costume. And left more to the imagination than the costume Bridget had picked out. Molly stood in front of the full length mirror in her apartment and attempted to ignore the feeling of dread creeping up on her. Tomorrow she would spend with Jack as he made pleasant Santa type talk, but ignored her otherwise.

"The hell with this." Molly pulled the costume off and climbed back into her jeans and sweatshirt.
He's going to listen to me.
Minutes later Molly pushed open the door to Jack's bar.

Jack was behind the counter, the only other people in the room were three older men who sat at a table by the television drinking beer and eating popcorn. When she walked into the bar all the men turned to look at Molly. While the table of older men went immediately back to their conversation and the game on TV, Jack had not looked away.

But as much as Jack had been on her mind, his green eyes weren't the first thing Molly noticed. She took in the entirety of the room. It must have cost Jack a small fortune to make the bar look this nice, this authentic. She was pleasantly surprised that there was no smoke in the bar. But most of all, she was intrigued by the music playing.

"Christmas music?" She turned and asked Jack.

"It's the country station," Jack said setting a glass of beer down on the counter.

"
Christmas
country music," Molly said feeling the corners of her mouth turn up as Jack pursed his own lips. "It looks really nice in here."

"Thanks. You never been in here?" Jack said, but somehow, she knew he had the answer to that question.

"No." Molly walked up to the counter and rested her palms on the smooth warm wood. "I need to talk to you."

"I don't have time to talk right now. I'm busy." Jack turned away from her and filled a pitcher of beer. Molly looked around the bar.

"You have three patrons."

"Three or three hundred, I don't have time to talk." Jack walked towards the men and set the pitcher down. As he walked back with an empty pitcher Molly stepped in his way. "Move."

"No, we've got stuff to talk about, and you can either listen to me over there," Molly pointed back to the counter. "Or, I can stand here and say it loud enough so you can hear anywhere in the bar."

One of the older men whistled quietly. "You better not make your lady mad Jack."

"She's not mine," Jack said glaring at Molly. "Fine, over here. But I got nothing to say."

Molly followed Jack to the bar and sat across from the register. "Fine, I got enough to say for the both of us. You just listen."

Jack sighed and leaned against the back counter, arms folded across his chest. Molly noticed that even when he was mad at her, the piercing glare from his eyes made her want to melt into the floor. Or more preferably, into his bed.

"First, I want to talk about Jeremy, then about Izzie." Molly hoped he would stand and listen to everything she had to say.

"Basically, you want to torture me?" Jack sounded serious, so serious it would have made Molly laugh if the conversation she was about to have with him was not so depressing. 

"Jeremy's mom is dying." Molly watched as Jack's body posture melted-ever so slightly.
So Jack Frost does have a bit of compassion in there somewhere?
"Rapidly. She's been fighting this disease since Jeremy and I started dating, and she's losing the battle. Her specialist gave her a month."

Molly paused and waited for Jack to say something. He was silent, a strange stillness over his body. "She is a really sweet woman; I think you'd like her. She's nothing like..." Molly's voice cracked and she watched as Jack flinched, as if he stopped himself from moving towards her. "I broke up with Jeremy the day after he came home. The day after you and I almost... the day after we dug the cord out of the storeroom closet. He begged me to not tell anyone, just to publicly date him until after the holidays. For his mom. So that is why it's complicated, I can't tell anyone, because of how fast rumors run in this town. But, you won't tell anyone will you?"