“You’re just saying that to hurt me,” she said, though the defense, like the flicker of compassion in her eyes, was weak. He turned his back on her. His car lay less than fifty yards away; he’d use it to head straight for Woodward House. Tonight, he could remain in the terribly decorated manor, a reminder of his failures, but tomorrow he would depart for Dallas and send an assistant in his stead. His direct involvement in the Miller’s Point branch of Woodward Enterprises could easily be handled by anyone on earth besides him. He’d never come back to this place. They didn’t deserve each other.
“And you just said everything you said to use me. If I hurt you, well. I guess we’re even now.”
He imagined she would follow him. Stay persistent. Turn him around and kiss him full on the mouth because she really did love him and he was being too stubborn or too blind to see it. He imagined a last-minute reprieve from the pain of losing her this way. It didn’t come. A little voice almost got lost in the wind, and the crack of her boots against stray twigs and leaves signaled her departure from the scene and from his life. A fact he should have been glad for.
“Fine.”
This time, when she went into the deep, dark forest of the back forty, Clark did not follow her. She and her stupid holiday could jump into a hundred icy rivers for all he cared. He was going home. He was going to take down the decorations. And he was going to go back to his lonely life. He would be alone, but at least he would be safe.
Being alone meant never having to open up to anyone. Being alone meant never having to take care of anyone. Being alone meant security. Tranquility. Ease.
Being alone meant no one could see tears trickling down his face.
Chapter Sixteen
Kate didn’t get very far into the forest. The flimsy light on her cell phone couldn’t contend with the creeping darkness and generally left her feeling like the first victim in a direct-to-video horror movie. Of all the ways she conceived of dying, she never dreamed it would happen in the middle of the Woodward family’s back forty while crying over a stupid man.
A stupid, beautiful man whose heart she’d broken.
She paused in the middle of a circle of trees long enough to consider her options. All of her things sat back in Woodward House. Her wet clothes and toothbrush and the now ill-advised present she’d left for Clark under the tree.
Oh, the present. She’d give anything to be able to slip in through a crack in a window and steal that back before he got a chance to open it. Would he even open it at all? Or would he toss it in the nearest fireplace and watch it burn to ash? Her gift joining the embers broke her heart, but her gift would no doubt insult him. She couldn’t decide which outcome she dreaded more.
No, she couldn’t go back for her stuff. If he was any kind of man, he’d send it into town or send her an Amazon shipment of new clothes and toothbrushes. Any further encounter between them would be pointless. But she couldn’t keep randomly walking through the woods in the dark. The mental Rolodex in her mind spun, searching for the least embarrassing person she could call to help her out of these woods—physical and emotional. Michael would be glib and make too many jokes about it. Emily would probably drive straight for Clark’s house and beat the daylights out of him. In a town of less than ten thousand people, Kate knew there was only one woman she could call on for help.
“Hello?”
Miss Carolyn answered on the first ring.
“Miss Carolyn?” Try as she might, Kate couldn’t keep the miserable sob from cracking the words. In the background of the other woman’s side of the call, Kate could make out the general merriment of the town square. Like an ironic fairground soundtrack playing in the background of a melodrama, the carol singing and laughter creeping through the phone mocked her, underscoring her pain. “I think I need you to come pick me up.”
Michael would’ve asked what was wrong. Emily would’ve asked who hurt her and what they were going to do about it. Miss Carolyn?
“Send me your location. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
True to her word, no less than ten minutes later, Miss Carolyn’s red pickup truck screeched into the muddy field where only a few minutes ago Kate and Clark watched the sing-along down in the valley. As she walked out from the forest towards the glow of the headlights, Kate reeled. To get this far from town that fast, she probably didn’t even pause for stop signs.
Miss Carolyn ran to meet her, scooping her into one of her world-famous hugs. For the first time in her life, the woman’s warm embrace did nothing to soothe Kate’s cracked heart.
“You’re gonna freeze to death out here,” Miss Carolyn said. “Let’s get you in the car.”
“Yes ma’am.”
Kate followed the older woman’s lead. Her swishing silver hair glowed in the moonlight, leaving a distinctly witchy vibe in her wake. As grateful as Kate was for Miss Carolyn’s rescue from the forest, the worry lines creasing her face dropped a pile of lead into the pit of her stomach. A pair of reindeer antlers sat crown-like upon her silver hair and a tacky Christmas sweater replaced her usual red flannel, a uniform Kate probably would have replicated if she hadn’t spent the entire day falling head over heels for the perfectly wrong man. The initial appeal of calling Miss Carolyn was her sage advice, the wisdom she’d always
