slow down from stroke level. “Never you mind.”
He grinned. “You can take it back, you know, and just admit you want me.”
Over her dead body. She plopped down in front of the basket and accepted the sandwich he handed her. She was all too aware of her phone vibrating on the blanket. It’d been vibrating on and off since they’d gotten here. After an internal debate, she gave an apologetic smile and answered. Work, of course, and it took a bit to get everything handled, but finally she disconnected. “Sorry.”
“That thing’s been going off since you stepped onto The Therapist. Is work always this intense?”
“Usually it’s worse. This is my boss showing restraint.”
They had wine chilling in a cooler, and when she pulled out ridiculously fancy glasses, a few rose petals fell out as well.
James laughed. She did not. “Nothing about this is anything like the hot dogs and s’mores that we used to get.” She shook her head. “He’s upped his game.”
James touched his glass to hers. “That he has.”
“I’m sorry your parents aren’t here for this.”
He shrugged, and she set her glass down, alerted by something in his carefully blank face. “So . . . what made you come this year?”
“Maybe it was for this,” he said, gesturing between them with his wineglass. “After all, Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without someone calling me on my shit every five seconds.”
“Aw,” she said with a laugh, “you missed this.”
“Yeah, I missed this.” He set his glass down. “And you,” he added, surprising her. “I missed you.”
Her heart fluttered, but her brain was afraid to believe. “Right. That’s why when you first arrived, you looked like you were dreading this trip.”
His smile faded. “That wasn’t about you.”
“What was it about?”
“Long story.”
She lifted her hands and gestured around them. “Literally, nowhere else to go or to be.”
James looked at her for a long beat. “My dad had always groomed Jason to take over the lumber business. Growing up, I was the . . . spare.”
She made a sound of regret for him, but he shook his head. “I was okay with that, believe me. I never wanted to stay in New York and run the company. I always wanted to leave and explore, to find my own thing that suited me. But then Jason died and the spare was pulled into play. You know I took off first, needing some time. I told myself it was my nature, but the truth was, I knew if I stayed in one place too long, I’d have to face the fact that Jason was really gone.”
“James,” she said softly, pained.
“I came back, and ever since then I’ve tried to run both sides of my life at the same time, helping Dad while keeping my own business afloat, too. I gave it everything I had, but I’ve known the truth for a long time. I’m never going to be happy fulfilling my dad’s dream. I’ve tried to break it to him gently, but he’s not hearing me. That’s what this trip was for. So you’re not the only one here with a mission. I’ve got a clock running, counting down the time until my dad catches up to us so I can tell him I want out. That the many years of grooming his sons to take over the family business were all for nothing.”
“Maybe he’ll understand. He’s a good man. I bet what he wants more than anything is for you to be happy.”
“Actually, what he wants is for me to be Jason,” James said. “But I’m not him. I can’t be. Not that it matters, because if my dad really needed me, I’d put my all into it in a heartbeat. But the thing is, he’s got a great team. He doesn’t actually need me there.”
“What about you?” she asked, feeling for him in a big way. The desire not to disappoint one’s parents is intense, even greater for James because of the loss of Jason. “What do you need?”
He looked surprised at the question, like maybe no one had ever asked him what he needed, which had her heart swelling until it felt too big for her rib cage.
“I need to be doing my thing,” he said quietly. “Running the expedition company has never felt like work to me. I can’t imagine not doing it. But splitting my focus is starting to affect both businesses.”
“How in the world have you been managing to do both? It must be killing you.”
“It’s taken a lot