One Winter's Sunset: The Christmas Baby Surprise / Marry Me under the Mistletoe / Snowflakes and Silver Linings

She pulled on some sweatpants and an old T-shirt, then headed out of her room and downstairs toward the kitchen. A little dry toast should take the edge off this nausea, and then she could go back to work on the book.

Emily was just reaching for the loaf of bread on the counter when she heard a tap-tap-tapping coming from outside the window. She leaned over the sink, and peeked out into the bright late-fall day.

Cole stood on a ladder, perched against the side of the building, hammering in a new piece of siding. He’d switched from dress clothes to a crisp new pair of jeans and a dark blue T-shirt that hugged the planes of his chest. Sunglasses obscured his blue eyes, and a leather tool belt hung at a sexy angle from his hips. For a second, her heart melted.

“He was here when I woke up this morning,” Carol said as she entered the kitchen.

Emily turned around and put her back to the window. What did Cole think he was doing? Did he think that fixing the inn’s porch would fix them, too? “Why?”

“I don’t know. I’m just glad for the help. Anything he can fix helps me in selling this place.”

Emily sighed. “It’s going to be so weird not to have this place here anymore. The Gingerbread Inn is such a big part of my childhood.”

Carol paused by the coffeepot. “Do you want a cup?”

“Uh, no. I’ll have tea instead.” Emily grabbed the kettle off the stove, filled it with water, then set it over the flame. Outside, Cole had stopped hammering. Emily resisted the urge to look outside and see what he was doing now. Maybe if she ignored him, he’d leave. Either way, he rarely stayed away from the office for more than a few hours, so whatever “fixing” he was doing would be done soon and Cole would go back to being his usual Type A, nose-to-the-grindstone self. She’d be on her own, just her and the baby, which was exactly what she wanted, she told herself. Her hand strayed to her stomach, a protective barrier.

Emily looked up and noticed Carol watching her. “What?”

“Tea, huh?”

Emily fished an herbal tea bag out of the glass mason jar next to the stove and held it up. “Yup.”

“Decaf, too. In the morning.” Carol cupped her hands around her mug of coffee and assessed Emily. “Anything you want to share?”

“Nope, nope.” She’d said that too fast, Emily realized. But she wasn’t ready to tell anyone about the baby yet. She thumbed toward her room. “I should get back to writing. I’m on a roll.”

If she stayed in this kitchen one more minute, she was sure Carol would read the truth in her face. The kettle whistled and Emily turned to pour the water. She heard a sound behind her and pivoted back.

Cole stood in the kitchen, watching her. In jeans and a T-shirt, he looked so much like the man she’d fallen in love with that Emily’s heart stuttered, and she had to remind herself to breathe. Cole still had the same lean physique as he’d had in college, and her mind flashed images of every muscle, every plane. Her hormones kept overriding her common sense.

Carol murmured some excuse about needing to start laundry and headed out of the room. Emily shifted her gaze away from Cole and down to her teacup. She dipped the bag up and down, up and down, avoiding Cole’s blue eyes. “What are you doing here?” she asked him.

“Helping Carol out.”

“I can see that.” She let out a frustrated gust. “Why?”

“She’s obviously in a tight spot right now and—”

“Cole, stop making up excuses for being here. I’ve been married to you for ten years, and you have never so much as hung a picture in all that time. So don’t tell me you got this sudden urge to become Homer Handyman.”

“Homer Handyman?” She could hear the smile in his voice, as he crossed the room and poured himself a cup of coffee. “I’m not making up excuses, Emily. I saw Carol needed help, and I wanted to do what I could. I haven’t worked with my hands since college, and I have to admit, it feels good.”

“Then go home and build a box or something. Don’t stay here.”

Cole paused in front of her and waited until she lifted her gaze to his. “Home isn’t home for me anymore.”

She refused to feel bad about that. Refused to let the echoes in his voice affect her. Their marriage had disintegrated, and Cole knew that as well as she did. “Why are you really here, Cole?”

His blue eyes softened, and for a moment, she saw the Cole she used to know. The Cole she had fallen in love with on a bright spring day on the NYU campus. “Because this place means a lot to you,” he said quietly.

The cold wall between her heart and his began to defrost, and Emily found herself starting to reach for Cole, for the man she used to know, used to love. Then his cell phone rang, the familiar trill that signaled a call from the company’s CFO, and Cole stepped back, unclipping the phone with one hand and putting up a finger asking her to wait a minute with the other.

Emily shook her head, then grabbed her tea and walked out of the kitchen before she was once again foolish enough to believe that anything had changed.

* * *

Chaos had descended on the offices of Watson Technology Development, if the number of calls, texts and emails Cole had received in the past hour were any indication. He’d been gone less than forty-eight hours and people were in a panic.

Rightly so, he supposed, considering he spent more hours at WTD than anywhere else in the world. Ever since the day he’d started it, Cole had dedicated most of his waking hours to the company that bore his name. In the beginning, the hours had been a necessity, as he worked his way up from a one-man office to a global company with offices in three U.S. cities and two foreign locations, building computers, cell phones and custom technology solutions for his customers.

It took him a good hour to calm down his assistant, and to wade through all the crises that needed his attention. The urge to run back to the office and handle everything himself ran strong in Cole, but every time he glanced at the pile of wood and tools, he remembered that he was here for another reason.

Not to fix the Gingerbread Inn—though that was the reason he’d given Emily—but to fix his marriage. Deep in his heart, Cole knew he had run out of chances, and if he let Emily go this time, what they had between them would die like a plant stuck in a dark corner for too long. That was partly his fault, he knew, and the only way to fix it was to stay here. Put in the time, handle the project of his marriage like he did any project at work—lots of man-hours.

When he hung up with the office, he flipped out his phone and made a quick list of everything that the Gingerbread Inn needed done to make it sellable. By the time he got to number fifty, he knew he needed two things—a couple of professionals, because some of the jobs were out of his realm—and a second set of hands.

Another half hour on the phone and he had a plumber, electrician and a roofer lined up to come out and give him estimates. The last call he made was to the one man he knew who would drop everything at a moment’s notice and travel anywhere in the world, just because a friend asked him to.

“Joe,” Cole said when the call connected. “How would you like to vacation in Massachusetts for the holidays?”

Joe laughed. “Did I just hear the great and busy Oz say the word vacation?”

“It won’t be a long one, but yes, I’m taking some time off. I’m working on a project here and could use an extra set of hands.” Cole explained about the inn and its owner’s financial struggles. “Plus, Em’s here.”

“She is? How’s that going?”

“Not so well. I’m just trying—” he sighed, pressed a finger to his temple “—to give us one more chance. I’m hoping that she sees my being here as being committed to her, to us.”

“I always thought you two were going to live a long and happy life together,” Joe said.

“Yeah, me too.” Cole sighed again.

His friend thought for a second. “Give me a couple days to tie up the loose ends I have here, and then I’ll join you. It’ll be good to catch up. How long has it been?”

“Too long,” Cole said. “Far too long.”

He hung up with Joe, then put his phone away and surveyed the work ahead of him. There was plenty to do, for sure. His gaze wandered to the second-floor bedroom where Emily was staying. The room was only twenty feet or so away, but it might as well have been on the moon.

Earlier, in the kitchen, there’d been a moment, a split second, really, where he’d thought maybe he could see a bridge back to them. Somehow, he needed to build more of those moments. One on top of another, and the bridge would connect them again. He hoped.

He headed back into the house and found Emily in the kitchen, opening a package of saltines. She’d changed into a pair of jeans and a fitted T-shirt. The clothes outlined her hourglass shape, the narrow valley of her waist, the tight curve of her rear end, and sent a roar of desire through him. Damn, he’d missed her. In a hundred different ways.

“Hey, Emily,” he said.

She turned around, a saltine in her hand. “Cole.”

There was no emotion in that syllable, nothing that he could read and pinpoint as a clue to how she felt about him. He cleared his throat, took a step closer.