Christmastime on Donner's Mountain by Laura Strickland

Author:Laura Strickland [Strickland, Laura]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: romance, contemporary, Christmas, New England
Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
Published: 2017-09-17T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Six

“Coward?” Becca Monroe might be a lot of things, but damned if Jack would ever apply that word to her. Impulsive and careless, yes. Selfish and occasionally cruel. Also warm and funny, and so loving it could steal a man’s sanity.

But she seldom dodged anything. She met challenges head on with brash bravery, sparing neither herself nor others.

“It seems to me, Jack, I owe you an explanation after all this time.”

“You don’t owe me anything.” He got up and, no longer hungry, scraped the remaining contents of his bowl into Gyp’s.

“I did, back then.” The assertion, spoken very softly, spun him back to face her.

“Don’t do this, Becca. Don’t rake it all up again. Let it stay dead.”

She rose from the table. “But it’s not dead, at least not for me. I see that, now I’m back here with you. I started to feel it as soon as I got to town—all those damn Christmas lights and the caroling. The plastic Santas. The cheer.”

He smiled wryly at the dislike that filled her voice. “Good will to all men.”

She lifted her chin a fraction. “Maybe if we talk it out tonight, then when I leave again, after Gramps dies, we can really put it behind us.”

“Sure. Because opening up an old wound, going at it with pincers, making it all gory, and pouring on some salt is always a good idea.”

“A wound that’s never cauterized tends to fester.”

And was that what ailed him? Had he been festering over Becca Monroe? Was that why he couldn’t look at another woman and hadn’t had sex in over a year?

Pitiful. Maybe she was right. Maybe here, now, trapped together in this den of old memories, they needed to have it out.

“Right.” He walked to the ancient sofa and threw himself down. “Tell me. Convince me why I should forgive you.”

****

Could she? Blinking at the tempting sight Jack made sprawled on the sofa, Becca doubted it—mostly because she didn’t believe she deserved forgiveness. She’d taken this man’s heart—the truest she’d ever known—and thrown it back in his face. Even before that she’d put him through hell, made him so miserable she thought he’d cast her off a dozen times.

He hadn’t. She’d watched those clear blue eyes of his fill with anger, with confusion and pain, but never—not till that last night in this very room—with goodbye.

Yeah, maybe they needed to rehash it here, for the sake of their sanity.

She perched on the sofa beside him, almost near enough to touch. “I’d like it if you could forgive me, Jack. I’m not sure I have it coming, but if I could have one Christmas wish, that would be it.”

“I see.” His gaze softened. Becca knew how compassionate his heart could be.

She sucked in a breath. “I’m like Gramps. Hard to handle, hard to get along with. Seldom satisfied. But I should have been satisfied with you.” Any woman should have been.

“You weren’t.” He threw that out in the spirit of the honesty upon which they’d agreed.

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