Winter Magic: 4 (The Hawks Mountain Series) (16 page)

ANGER BOILING INSIDE him like a storm-tossed sea, Jonathan knocked on Andi’s door. It took a few minutes before the door opened. When it did, her expression of annoyance quickly transformed into one of shock.

“Jonathan!”

“Yes, Jonathan.” Not waiting for an invitation, he pushed past her.

Aware that Andi had followed him into the living room, he stopped in the middle of the floor and swung around to face her. For a moment, he was struck dumb by her beauty, but he turned a blind eye, refusing to allow it to sidetrack him from his purpose.

“Do you want to tell me what’s going on?” She opened her mouth to say something, but he surged ahead. “How long did you intend to keep lying to me about who you really are?”

Andi collapsed into a chair. She looked as if he’d slapped her, and for one fleeting second he wanted to take her in his arms and tell her everything was okay. But his anger overrode any benevolent feelings he had for her.

She looked at him like a child begging forgiveness for breaking an expensive vase. “I tried to tell you, but you were rushing out to go to New York.” Tears glistened in her eyes.

“I talked to you every day, you could have told me then.” Everyone always seemed to have an excuse for their lies, even Andi.

She shook her head. “I didn’t want to tell you over the phone.”

“Why?” he demanded, his tone sharper than he’d intended.

She flinched as though he’d hit her, then a tear ran down her cheek. He steeled himself against it. She made no move to wipe it away. “Because I knew how you felt about being lied to and that your reaction would be bad. I know what I did was wrong, but if you’ll just listen I can explain.”

He balled his fists to contain his anger. “Explain? There’s nothing to explain. It’s very simple. You lied to me from day one.”

“But—”

“I’m not sure which is worse. That you lied about who you were, or that you led me to believe you had feelings for me.”

“I do.”

He glowered at her. “No. You don’t lie to the people you care about. I’ll expect you to come by and get your things as soon as possible.” He strode from the room and out of the house.

DEVOID OF HER party finery and clothed instead in a nightgown and terry robe, Andi stood on her porch, relishing the way the cold air helped numb the pain around her heart. The weather had turned bad again, and it had begun to snow. The extreme silence that always accompanied a new snowfall surrounded her, reminding her of the bleakness that had taken over her life in one evening. The anger on Jonathan’s face was indelibly imprinted on her mind’s eye. He’d never forgive her for this. Never. And she wasn’t at all sure she deserved forgiveness.

She’d been so worried about Miranda stealing him from her. She should have worried more about losing him because she’d betrayed him, just as he’d always believed Henry and Sarah had done. As if she’d find an answer there, she raised her gaze to the clear night sky. The falling snow glistened in the light from her windows and the sky hung above her like a huge blanket of velvet blackness.

Then, in the distance, the echo of a bird’s distinctive call shattered the stillness. A few minutes later, the sound of flapping wings drew her attention. The large snowy owl that had recently been perching in the oak outside her bedroom window landed gracefully in the tree just beyond the porch. It wrapped its long talons around a small limb, tucked its massive wings around its body, and then studied her with unblinking, judgmental yellow eyes.

Andi pulled her robe tighter around her body and swallowed back the tears that had hovered close to the surface ever since Jonathan had stormed from the house. “I know I messed up. I don’t need you to tell me.”

The owl continued to stare at her.

“Unfortunately, I don’t know what to do that will make it right, if there is anything that will make it right.”

Still, those glowing yellow eyes remained focused on her.

She felt so hopeless, so empty. Unbidden tears blurred the image of the bird. “If only he’d let me explain, but he won’t. I’m sure he sees me as one more person who’s violated his trust by lying to him.”

The bird blinked.

Andi wiped away the tears that had turned cold on her cheeks. “You’re supposed to be so wise. Tell me what to do.”

Good grief! Asking advice from an owl? How desperate can you get, Andrea?

Just then, a sharp
cracking
noise broke the silence. The limb the big bird had been perching on broke under his weight. He immediately took fight and found another limb to sit on.

Andi stared at the huge bird. Instantly, the answer came to her. Just because one thing went wrong, didn’t mean she should completely give up. Or, as Granny Jo would say,
where there’s a will, there’s a way
. She threw one last look at the snowy bird, smiled, and then hurried into the house.

JONATHAN HAD JUST settled into his desk chair in his darkened office, wondering if he’d done the right thing. Now that he’d had the opportunity to cool down some, he was having doubts. Maybe he should have let her explain. Maybe—

The office door opened. He looked up and immediately recognized the dark silhouettes of a beardless Santa and his favorite spreader of Christmas joy as they entered the room.

He sighed. “Aunt Sarah, Dad, if you don’t mind, I’d rather be alone.”

“We mind.” The tone of Aunt Sarah’s voice told him she would not be trifled with, nor was she leaving, and she was not going to argue the point.

Click!

The room was flooded with light. Jonathan squinted against the glare. It appeared as though Andi’s Army had arrived, and he was not going to have any choice but to listen to their terms of surrender.

Aunt Sarah took her customary seat on the other side of his desk. His father, looking grumpy and out of character with the jolly old elf he was portraying, joined her in the other chair.

Aunt Sarah lost no time in launching her attack. “What happened tonight with Andi? I saw her run out of the Lodge with you on her tail. Then you came back alone, and she won’t answer her phone.”

Typical Aunt Sarah. Straight to the point. No beating around the bush.

He didn’t answer, because he really wasn’t sure what had happened. All he knew for certain was that Andi had pretended to be someone she wasn’t, he’d confronted her, and he still had no idea why she’d lied about it.

“Well,” Aunt Sarah went on, not waiting for any explanation from him, “whatever the problem is, I suggest that instead of sitting here licking your wounded ego, you go see her and fix it before you lose her.”

“I agree,” his father chimed in. “She’s the best thing that has happened to this family since your granddaddy made his first million.”

Jonathan couldn’t argue that point. But was the Andi that had won the hearts of the entire Prince family real, or was she someone she and her twin had invented to accomplish their own ends?

“Seeing her isn’t going to fix anything. She’ll just tell me more of the same lies.” He wasn’t about to tell them what had just taken place at Andi’s house. He fingered the gold necklace coiled on his desk top where he had thrown it when he came in.

Aunt Sarah
huffed
her disapproval. “Maybe it won’t. Maybe she did lie. I have no reason to believe she did, but obviously you do. I don’t need to know any of that. That’s between the two of you. But at least give her a chance. If you feel she’s lied to you, you need to talk to her. And you have to start out by trusting that her reasons were good for doing what she did.” Sarah stood. “Come along, Henry. Jonathan has some soul searching to do.” Both of them started toward the door.

Sarah stopped and turned back to him. “Are you willing to let her go so easily, Jonny? It may be something you’ll regret for the rest of your life if you do. Is that what you want? Living your life with a bunch of
should haves
hanging over your head instead of happiness in your heart? Not all women are alike. Sooner or later, you’re gonna have to learn to trust that to be true, Jonny.”

“By the way, son,” Henry said, “the early numbers are in, and this fundraiser has apparently done better than any we’ve had in three years. You owe that girl for saving your mother’s foundation.”

Sarah clicked off the light as they exited the room and closed the door behind them. Once more, he was enveloped in the blanket of misery. But at least his mother’s foundation was saved. That was one less thing to eat at him.

Thoughts of Andi, on the other hand, were still gnawing away at him. It was all well and good that when he’d walked out of her house, he’d decided never to see her again, that he couldn’t forgive her lies, but his heart kept telling him he was a fool.

Maybe Aunt Sarah was right. Maybe he had to learn to trust people. Wasn’t that why none of his other relationships had worked out? Because he could never trust them to be who they said they were, to love him for whom he was and not his bank balance?

Until now, he’d never realized how much those varied incidents in his life, those lies told to him by his relatives and the women who pretended to love him for himself, had colored how he interacted with everyone. Now he knew the reason Sarah and his father had lied about his mother’s condition was not because they wanted to, but because his mother had asked them to do it to protect him.

So why did he still carry that mistrust with him?

Perhaps the reinforcement of so many women declaring love for him when there was none had caused him to hold onto it.

He picked up the necklace.
#1 Teacher
. So Andi was a teacher. It fit her. He smiled, recalling how Andi had engaged in a snowball fight with him, then rolled around in the snow and shared their first kiss. How many women did he know who would have endangered a salon hairdo and designer clothing to build a snowman or have a snowball fight? None came to mind. None except Andi.

He recalled her simple but homey house. The paintings that reflected her placid, tender personality. The fact that she gave her time to the children at The Wishing Place.

He sat up straight in his chair. Andi was the genuine article. What had taken him so long to see that?

Jonathan jumped up from his chair, grabbed the necklace and his car keys, and then hurried out the door.

DRESSED AND determined to see Jonathan and make him listen, Andi opened her front door. Standing on the other side, his fist raised to knock, was Jonathan. Stunned, and with her heart suddenly beating double time, she could find no words, not even ones to ask why he’d come back.

He held up his other hand. Dangling from it was the necklace she’d been awarded for being voted the Teacher of the Year. “I believe this belongs to you.”

She avoided looking directly into his eyes. Instead, she fixed her gaze on the gold chain he held and swallowed the lump clogging her throat. Was this all he’d come back for? To return a piece of lost jewelry? “Where did you find it?”

“On the ballroom floor.”

Andi needed no elaboration. She knew exactly when she’d lost it. It had been when she’d pulled away from him after seeing Miranda in the room. She recalled the sensation of it slipping from her wrist.

“May I come in? We need to talk.”

Without a word, Andi stepped back and opened the door wider, a silent invitation for him to enter. As he walked past her, she took a deep breath and caught a whiff of the cologne he wore. Spicy. Manly. She remembered how the smell had clung to her skin the morning after they’d made love. Suddenly, her senses reeled. Her head felt light. She reached for the table beside the door, but Jonathan caught her arm before she could reach it.

“Are you okay?” His fingertips tingled where they grasped her skin.

She pulled away as if he’d burned her. “Yes, I just lost my balance for a moment.” She hurried past him into the cozy living room. He followed.

Suddenly eager to have her say before he left again, she spun around to face him. “I’m sorry I ran out tonight. I should have stayed and explained to you why I pretended to be Miranda.”

All the anger he’d felt earlier had drained out of him. He was ready to hear her explanation. “Yes, you should have. I shouldn’t have walked out either. But we’re both here now, and I’m listening.”

She folded into the chair like a wilted flower. He wanted to reach for her, but something told him she wouldn’t want him to. He took a seat on the sofa and waited for her to go on.

“I assume you know by now that I don’t own
le Fête Boutique
.”

He nodded. “I figured that out tonight, when I started comparing you to the woman who came to my office that first day.”

“The woman who met with you that first time was my twin sister, Miranda. She owns the company. I’m a kindergarten teacher.” She went on to explain about Miranda’s emergency hospital stay, her pleas with Andi to meet with him and pretend to be her, and the infections that prevented Miranda from taking over the plans for the gala. “I wasn’t supposed to do any more than meet with you that first time. But by the time she was released from the hospital, the night of the gala was only a few days away, and she never would have been able to get caught up on everything.”

Jonathan could see that explaining this was taking a toll on Andi by the way she was wringing her hands while she talked. He wanted to spare her the explanation, but he sensed that she needed to get it all out. So he remained silent.

“My sister has never been very good at business. She’s tried several things, and all of them have tanked. This was the first business she’d tried that seemed to have a chance of survival. So, when you insisted on working only with the owner, and she ended up having emergency surgery, she panicked.” Andi looked at him for the first time since she’d begun talking. “I’m so sorry I lied to you, but . . .”