A Mountain Springs Christmas

Chapter 11

eleven

NOELLE

Noelle got into her car Monday morning to go to work and blasted the Christmas All Day station, singing along to it. Christmas music just didn’t sound the same in the rental car she’d been driving. She patted Elfie’s dash. It was so good to have her back.

Christmas was five days away. Christmas Eve—and her birthday—was Friday. She loved her job, but it was still exciting to have a break coming up.

She took her usual detour to bypass driving through Main Street. She still hadn’t recovered enough from Gran-gran’s passing to drive down it with all its Christmas decorations yet—it still flooded her with too many emotions to handle first thing in the morning—but she was making progress. She only had four days of work this week before they were off for Christmas break, and she was determined to drive down it by Thursday morning.

And, because she hadn’t gone a full five minutes since Saturday night without thinking about the kiss she and Jack shared, her mind went there again. All night long, they had worked together so well. So many times, they’d brushed hands, shoulders, knees. So many little touches from working so closely together, yet every one of them had sent thrills right through her.

As they were working on putting the final touches on their tree, he just looked at her with the sweetest expression. Like there was nowhere else he would rather be and no one else he’d rather be with. Like he was just soaking in the moment of being with her, and it mirrored what she felt so much that she’d wanted to kiss him so badly.

It had taken a lot of guts to make that move because she hadn’t been sure how he would respond. The moment he put his arm around her waist and pulled her close, a weight had lifted from her, and she just sank into his kiss. It had been so sweet and wonderful and full of more emotions than she could even name.

She jerked out of the memory at the sound of her phone ringing. Glancing at the console, she could see that it was her sister, Hope. She pressed the button to let the car answer the phone. Elfie might not have power windows, but the manufacturer must’ve known how much she’d need Bluetooth.

“Hi, sis!”

“Hi! Okay, I just got Makelle off to school, and Porter and Weston are quietly eating breakfast, which means I have about a four-minute window of calmness here. Tell me about this weekend! You and Jack were looking pretty cozy. Did he kiss you? Because I got the vibe that he wanted to kiss you.”

“I kissed him.”

Hope squealed. “I knew it! When? How was it?”

“When we were decorating the tree, and it was amazing . It was like everything all night had been building up to it. Actually, everything from the moment he showed up to the hayride Friday night. We had just been on the same page so much the whole night, and I could tell that he wanted to kiss me as badly as I wanted to kiss him. It was magical. Like nothing I’ve ever experienced.”

Hope squealed again, and she wasn’t even a squealer. “That’s how it was the first time Cory and I kissed. Tell me more. Was there a second kiss?”

“No.” She’d tried to not sound disappointed when she said the word, but it came out anyway. “It just started seeming like we weren’t on the same page so much after that. Like he was pulling away.”

“Maybe he just didn’t like the food. I mean, Julianne’s team’s chicken tortilla soup was pretty... interesting.”

Noelle chuckled. “True. But I think it has more to do with him being my boss; I know he was worried about that. I was hoping that he’d kind of decided that it wasn’t such a big deal. But I don’t know, maybe I was wrong. And it wasn’t like he was dropping any big hints that he’s not okay with ‘us.’ It was more subtle things. Things I might not have picked up on if we hadn’t been so in sync.”

“Ooo, that’s tough. Weston! We don’t put fistfuls of Cheerios and milk in people’s hair.” She heard a few sounds of dishes moving and a grunt, probably as Hope pulled Weston out of his high chair, then heard the water run. “Keep talking. I’m listening.”

“I just think I probably shouldn’t have let my heart get so involved. I never thought that would even be an issue when Jack asked me to take this side job, so I was kind of blindsided by my attraction to him. I should just back away as quickly as possible.”

“Maybe you should,” Hope said, which she was totally not expecting, especially after the squeals.

“But my heart got involved with his nephew, too. I went over there yesterday after church to give him the star-shaped pretzels, and we just hung out and played. He’s just such a cute kid. And I think he’ll be sad, too. He has really loved playing with everyone’s kids.”

“Oh, yeah. That’s extra tough.”

“And I just can’t stop thinking that when Christmas is over, Jack is going to go back to just being my boss, and Aiden is going to go back to being a kid I never see because it wasn’t like I had seen him even once during the first year and a half I worked for Jack. And I’m not sure I can handle either of those things, Hope. Especially not the part about Jack.”

“So, what do you want to do?”

“What do I want to do? I want to spend time with him outside of work every single day and then kiss like we did on Saturday night.”

“Okay, so what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. We texted a bit yesterday, but even his texts seemed more distant.”

“Maybe you should talk to Becca and Corbin since they’ve both worked in human resources.”

“Maybe.” She pulled into a parking spot in front of work. “I just need to put him out of my mind. I need to back away. Amazing kiss, amazing night, amazing man or not, I just need to back away before I get my heart in any deeper.” She took in a long breath, then blew it out in a huff. “I just need to focus on being grateful that I have Elfie fixed, and I’m driving her again. That was what I did all this for in the first place. Mission accomplished.”

“That sounds like a plan. Good luck with it!”

After Noelle went inside the building and set her bag at her desk, she pulled out her lunch container and headed to the break room to put it in the fridge.

As soon as she stepped through the doorway and saw Jack pouring himself a cup of coffee, she knew her plan was destined to fail, and no amount of luck was going to save it. It wasn’t like she had started falling for him, and it was no big deal because she was actually bungee jumping and was going to get pulled back to the starting point at any minute. She had already fallen entirely. The parachute had been deployed, she’d landed, and there was no going back.

“Hi,” she breathed, a smile spreading across her face.

A beautiful, perfect, joyful smile filled his face, too. How had she not been falling for this man from the moment she’d started working here?

The second he’d switched from his natural reaction at seeing her to a logical, thought-out worry was evident on his face. She knew that something along the lines of “I’m the boss, so this isn’t appropriate” was churning in his mind. But she could also see hints of something else. The same longing that she was feeling. She wanted to tell that part of him to stay strong. She really wanted it to win.

“Good morning.”

“How was the rest of your weekend?”

He opened his mouth like he was going to give the answer that first came to mind, but then he shut it again. Then he said slowly, pausing after every word or two like he was choosing his words with great care. “It was... good. I can’t say it came without worries.”

Oh, no. He had definitely been spending a lot of time thinking about the boss/employee thing. In an attempt to keep things light, she put on a big smile and said, “It sounds like you need a night of Christmas fun to keep your mind off your worries.”

He just studied her, not responding, and she could see the care in his eyes. Then his eyes shifted to the door behind her, and he turned back to his coffee. Noelle turned around just in time to see Lennox, who had strode into the room, falter in his step as he looked between the two of them, trying to decipher what had just been going on.

Noelle acted like nothing was out of the ordinary and opened the fridge, putting her lunch inside. “The meeting’s at two-thirty, right?” There. She’d just made it sound like that’s all they’d been talking about.

Jack nodded, then gave Lennox a nod and said, “Good morning,” then walked out of the break room.

Lennox clearly hadn’t bought her “Let’s talk about the meeting” cover. Probably because the meeting was always at 2:30 on Mondays.

He glanced at the doorway Jack had left through then back at Noelle. “So, what was that about?”

“Just an issue with a client and my part in it.” She didn’t mention that Jack was the client. And she definitely didn’t say that her part in it had been falling in love with him.

Since she’d thrown herself under the bus with the comment, Lennox seemed to buy it. He grimaced. “That’s no fun. Good luck.”

That was twice in less than twenty minutes she’d been wished luck on something that needed more than luck. It wasn’t like Jack was going to stop being her boss, and it didn’t appear that her heart was going to stop wanting a relationship with him.