Mistletoe Hero

he wanted to stay. She just had to show him he belonged. An old song ran through her head: “Hold On Loosely.” That’s what she needed to do. She couldn’t keep Gabe by clinging to him and thwarting his options for the future. But even knowing that, she had trouble adopting a que sera attitude. Every day she was with him, she fell a little further even though she would have sworn that wasn’t possible. Apparently her love for Gabe was a bottomless pit.

“I’m taking this cake to the table,” her mother informed her. “You, take a couple of deep breaths and get it together.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

When Ari returned to the dining room, she resolved to keep her mouth full of moist, rich dessert and shut the hell up before she did anything to alienate the guest of honor further. Luckily the mellowing properties of comfort food went a long way toward decreasing the stress level at the table.

Gabe seemed contentedly sated as he pushed his plate away. “That was fantastic, Susan.” She’d pshawed his earlier attempts at calling her Mrs. Waide.

Lilah nodded enthusiastically. “I remember the first Thanksgiving I ever had here. The food was so amazing, I couldn’t stop eating until I literally thought I was going to pop. And then she brought out the desserts. Lord knows how I managed to zip my Winter Wonderland formal dress that year.”

Susan smiled and turned to Gabe. “Do you have plans for Thanksgiving?”

His expression was skittish, and Arianne cursed silently. Had she turned him off the idea of spending time with her family? Or worse, spending time with her?

“No, ma’am,” Gabe was forced to admit. “No definite plans yet. Things are kind of up in the air for me right now.”

“Well, if you find yourself at loose ends, you’re always welcome here,” Susan said.

“And don’t feel bad if you show up at the last minute,” David said. “She makes enough food for roughly forty people, so there will be plenty to go around.”

Tanner checked his watch. “Lilah, if we want to make that movie, we should clear off a couple of these plates and get going.”

She stood, gathering dishes and utensils. “Anyone want to go with us?”

“Sounds like fun,” Arianne said. “What are you seeing? Maybe Gabe and I can join you.”

He shook his head. “I have a very early start tomorrow, so you’ll have to count me out.”

Disappointed, Arianne wondered how much of his answer stemmed from needing sleep and how much of it came from her being so frenetic tonight.

Everyone helped pitch in to clear the table, then began their goodbyes. Lilah and Tanner took off for their movie, and Arianne and Gabe left soon after so that he could take her home and get some sleep. Rachel complained laughingly that she and David might still be there come morning because that’s how long it seemed to take to gather up all of Bailey’s paraphernalia.

David agreed. “I live in terror that one of these days we’re going to be so busy checking to make sure we have the car seat, the stroller frame, the diaper bag, the pump, the binky, the toys and the bassinet that we’re going to back out of the driveway and realize we left her.”

Inside Gabe’s truck, neither of them said much.

Halfway to her house, Arianne admitted to herself that probably the best thing to do was apologize. “I’m sorry if you had a horrible time,” she said.

“It wasn’t horrible. Your family’s great,” he said neutrally. “In spite of the ‘I own a shotgun’ vibe I occasionally got from your dad.”

She laughed. “Fathers are required to look that way at their daughters’ dates. Don’t take it personally.”

Gabe stopped at a red light, resting his arms on the steering wheel. “I think that’s the first real laugh I’ve heard from you all evening. Everything else seemed a bit…forced.”

“I really am sorry,” she reiterated. “I know I was a spaz-I just couldn’t stop myself. I guess I’ve had guys over for meals and movie nights and board games with the family before, but I’ve never taken home anyone as special to me as you are.”

He gifted her with a bone-melting smile as he turned onto her street. “Put that way, it’s difficult to stay mad at you.”

“Good! Because I’d hate for you to turn down my mom’s Thanksgiving invitation just because I screwed up tonight.” She stared out the window, troubled. “You really don’t have plans?”

“No, why would I?”

Because he had a parent living in the same zip code! She knew they were estranged, but family-even family who didn’t like each other-got together for the holidays. It was ritual. Similar to people who didn’t actually belong to a church but still showed up somewhere for Easter service. She’d assumed from the way Gabe talked that he and his dad didn’t spent the holidays together, but hearing it confirmed was different.

She glanced back at him. “David was serious when he said my mom makes enough food for forty. So you could invite your dad to come, too. If you wanted.”

He slammed the truck into Park, the gears grinding discordantly. “If I wanted? What have I said or done that makes you think I want anything to do with that man?”

“But he’s the only father you’re ever going to have,” she said philosophically.

“Look, I know this is difficult for you to understand since you come from such a close-knit family, but I’m fine not having a relationship with him.”

“What if you aren’t?” she pressed, thinking about the pain she’d seen in his face the night he told her about his mom’s death. “What if he’s subconsciously the reason you stayed in Mistletoe, because you hoped that somewhere down the road the two of you could-”

“I’m not staying in Mistletoe, remember? So it’s a moot point. Look, Ari, if I’m here, I’ll have Thanksgiving with you and your family, but I’m not spoiling the day by asking that man to join us, so just drop it. Even if I did invite him, he wouldn’t come. He wants just as little to do with me as I do with him.”

“I don’t know.” Sure, Jeremy Sloan had given her the cold shoulder the other day, but there’d been a sense of shocked loss in his expression after she told him Gabe was going away. Not that the intractable man had done anything about it! “When I talked to him-”

“You talked to my father? About me?” Gabe gripped the steering wheel tightly. Since they’d already arrived at their location, she couldn’t help wondering if he was pretending it was her neck.

“I didn’t call him at home or anything. I just happened to run into him out of the blue. It seemed like a good idea to-”

“You and I have very different opinions of what constitutes a good idea. You can’t keep doing this!”

“Doing what?” she demanded, exasperated that he’d cut her off again. “Bumping into people at the post office?”

“No, trying to micromanage my life! I’m not some pet project.”

That stung. She had Gabe’s best interests at heart. She wanted him to be whole and happy and she believed he was deluding himself when he said making peace with his father wasn’t part of that. “You know that’s not how I see you,” she said, opening her door.

“Do I? You appeared on the scene suddenly telling me what to do, trying to manipulate me into making changes.”

“Damn good changes!” Even if he was being too stubborn to admit the truth. “I’ve made more improvements on your so-called life in four weeks than you have in fourteen years! And this is the thanks I get?”

He clenched his jaw. “I didn’t ask for your interference, Arianne, and I don’t want it.”

She climbed out of the truck, so furious at the way he characterized her that she almost couldn’t speak. A manipulative control freak? Is that how he saw her? Her initial impression of Gabe had been that he wasn’t in the right emotional place for a relationship, and now she suspected she’d been correct. He wasn’t used to sharing his life with anyone else. Would he ever value her input, her attempts to demonstrate how much she cared about him, or was she simply making them both crazy?

She needed to stop clinging to the idea of what they could have together and simply let him be. “The good news is, you won’t have to worry about my ‘interference’ anymore. And don’t trouble yourself over the logistics of a long-distance relationship. A clean break is probably best for everyone.”

This time, she wasn’t going to wait for him to walk away.