A Mountain Springs Christmas

Chapter 15

fifteen

NOELLE

Noelle rolled over in bed and looked at the clock on her phone. She really needed to get up and get ready for work. Could she call in sick? No. She’d sent an email to everyone at work—all eight of them, including Jack—to say that she was ill on Tuesday, which she never did. She loved her job too much for taking time off. But her heart hurt enough that she definitely hadn’t been well enough to go in.

She still felt like she wasn’t.

She had thought of letting everyone know that she was sick yesterday, too, but her workload was too big to skip a second day. And since today was the final day before Christmas break, she really had to go in. She couldn’t leave all of her work for her co-workers. So she forced herself to get out of bed and to get ready.

She knew she had promised herself to drive down Main Street by today, but she just couldn’t. Not now.

Her birthday was tomorrow, and she was going to be twenty-six. She had kind of figured that she would be married by now. Maybe even thinking about having a kid. Not still single. And the first guy she had been interested in for quite a while was completely unattainable.

Not that it was a reason for being sad about her age or thinking she hadn’t accomplished things. She probably wouldn’t have even thought about it at all if it wasn’t for the fact that she had fallen for Jack so entirely and wanted him in her life.

Her workday ended up mostly being the same today as it had been yesterday. She’d tried to pretend that everything was fine, but everyone seemed to know that she wasn’t okay. And it wasn’t just Bridget and Lennox who had noticed. She had mostly managed to avoid Jack at work, but apparently, he had been pretending that everything was fine and failing at it, too, because everyone was talking about it.

And although they weren’t saying anything, they were definitely putting two and two together and realizing that her and Jack being simultaneously not fine probably meant that they weren’t fine because of each other.

Noon rolled around, which meant it was time for their Holiday Sendoff celebration. They all headed into the conference as their catered meal was brought in, and everyone prepared to socialize before taking off work and doing whatever it was that they were doing for the holidays. She couldn’t avoid Jack there.

They all took seats around the big conference table that they usually had meetings at like it was a big family dinner, both Jack and Noelle pretending to be fine. But there was a tension in the air surrounding everyone.

After they all dished up their food, she attempted to lighten the mood by saying, “How about we go around the table and tell our favorite something. Like our favorite holiday song or holiday movie.”

“Or our favorite person to spend the holiday with,” Lennox said, clearly attempting to decipher the situation.

“No,” Jack said with enough authority that it left no room for negotiation.

“Oh...kay,” Lennox said. “Favorite movie, then.”

As they went around the table, saying what their favorite movie was, Jack looked across the table at her with a longing that matched her own.

If they felt the same way about each other, it was stupid that they should both be miserable and apart. She pulled out her phone and texted her sister, Becca.

Noelle: Can I come over after work and talk with you and Corbin?

Becca: Of course! Come at 6:00 if you want dinner, 7:30 if you want ice cream.

Noelle put a spoonful of ice cream in her mouth and savored the candy cane-flavored goodness as Corbin got their one-year-old out of her high chair, and Becca used a cloth to wipe all the ice cream off their three-year-old’s mouth before he ran off to be crazy with their two older kids. Then her sister and brother-in-law joined her at the table in their beautiful home, the halls fully decked, Christmas music playing over the speakers, each of them finally getting to their bowls of ice cream.

Corbin got a scoop of ice cream on his spoon, then looked at it for a moment and said, “I’m guessing you’re here about your boss,” before he put the ice cream in his mouth.

Becca added, “And you’re wanting our opinions on dating him since we’ve both worked in human resource departments.”

“Wow, you guys are smart.”

“That’s why they pay us the big bucks,” Becca said, winking.

“Okay, then, I have a question. Is it illegal for a boss to date an employee?”

“Illegal?” Corbin asked. “No. But it might be against your employment contract and could get you fired.”

“It’s not in my employment contract. So couldn’t we just date?”

“What does he think about it?” Becca asked.

“He thinks we shouldn’t. Like it’s an ironclad law that shouldn’t be broken. But I know that he really wants to date—I can see it in the way he looks at me. And I want to date him, so I just don’t think we should let obstacles stand in our way.”

Becca’s eyebrow rose. “Does he seem like the kind of guy who would go against his beliefs to get what he wanted?”

Noelle let out a long breath. “No. Not even a little bit.”

“Overcoming obstacles in a relationship is a good thing. So is respecting what’s really important to the other person. He obviously cares a lot about his company—and he should! He’s got what? Seven employees?”

“Eight.”

“They all depend on him to make good choices for his company. He depends on it, too.”

“I just don’t see how our dating would be bad for the company.”

“Okay, look at it this way,” Corbin said. “If the two of you dated and fell in love and didn’t keep it a secret, how would all of your coworkers feel about it?”

She thought about it for a moment. It had been a natural instinct to keep things with Jack quiet at work. Was it because she didn’t believe her coworkers would be thrilled to know that they were dating? Both Bridget and Lennox had acted a little wary at the slightest hint that there was something between them.

“And how would you feel when you got a raise or a promotion or anything like that—maybe something you had been working hard for since the day you started working there—and everyone assumed that you only got it because you were dating the boss?”

Oh. Yeah, that wouldn’t be awesome. She hadn’t thought about that.

“Jack is smart to have strict rules for himself about dating one of his employees,” Becca said. “Just think about breakups—they can get messy. And if they do, they can take a company down. But not only that, it can be nearly impossible to keep away from the appearance of favoritism. Even if someone is determined to not show favoritism, it can creep in without them even noticing. And that can greatly affect the morale of all the employees.”

Noelle leaned back in her chair, stunned. She hadn’t thought about any of those things at all. Ever since Jack had told her the story about how he’d never looked at his parents’ marriage and felt that he wanted that for himself someday, she had kind of assumed that he was letting fear stop him. She covered her face with her hands. “I judged the situation so wrongly.”

Then she sat up straight, dropping her hands from her face. “And I was the one to kiss him. I initiated that. The hand holding on the hayride, too. He had said that he couldn’t get involved with me after the hayride, but I ignored that and still kissed him the next day.”

Becca reached out and gave Noelle’s hand a squeeze. “There was a lot you didn’t know at the time. You can’t beat yourself up for that. Plus, I think he might have been letting his heart take charge a bit, too.”

“Maybe.” She ran her spoon through and through her ice cream, making designs in the partially melted cream but not really seeing them. “But I do have the power to change things.”

Corbin cocked his head to the side. “Are you talking about your job? You love your job.”

“I do. But if you think about it, it all comes down to one question: which do I love more—my job or Jack?”