Snow Job (20 page)

“Why didn’t you just tel me?”

“About the park?”

She nodded.

“Wel , for one thing, I didn’t think you’d believe me. And for another thing, I thought you’d…okay, this is ironic, now that I think about it. I thought if I came to you about it, you’d assume that the park was just something I was doing to try to get you back. That it was somehow dishonest, just a ploy.”

“Wasn’t it?”

“No.” He smiled a crooked half-smile. “You sure think a lot of yourself these days. No, it wasn’t to try to get you back. It was just something I thought would be a good thing to do.”

“For your corporate image?” She didn’t know why she was being catty, almost trying to pick a fight. She felt lost without the familiar blanket of resentment she’d grown accustomed to, and wanted it back, wanted to draw it around her for comfort and protection as she had done for nearly a year. Without it, she wasn’t sure how to proceed.

Karl shook his head patiently and sat down on the bed beside her, shoving a pile of her clothes aside to make room and reaching for her hands. When she tried to pul them away he held on tighter, an echo of his behavior from the beginning of their trip. “Because it would be a good legacy for the family. We can al learn something about stewardship, Elyce. Even if they’re not my own kids, I want the kids in this family to know that al their advantages come with some responsibilities to give something back to the community. But also because the fact that you were wil ing to leave me over what the company did made me think differently about what the company was doing. Not at first, true, but after I’d had some time to calm down.”

She gazed down at their joined hands, feeling the strength in his grip, his determination not to let her pul away. “Differently how?”

“I can’t change the way anybody else is doing business, but I can look at my own company’s practices and work on making them greener. More eco-friendly. It can be one of our ‘things’. Frankly, it’s a trend right now anyway. I’l admit that’s part of why it’s a workable idea, the technology and the resources are out there to work with now, more so than they used to be. I think it’s the way construction and planning are headed, so it’s better to be on the front of that curve than on the back of it. It’s just good business sense.

But that doesn’t make it al bad, right?”

“I guess not.”

“At least it’s an effort. But I never would have put a development along that stretch of shoreline, Elyce. Not if I knew there were threatened species there. I wouldn’t fight that battle if a chal enge were made, just for the sake of profit. I haven’t changed
that
much. That’s the part I stil can’t believe you fel for.”

When she didn’t say anything, he just squeezed her hands again then released them and stood up with a sigh.

She stayed silent, couldn’t think of what to say, as he left the room, pul ing the door closed behind him.

Left alone with her thoughts, Elyce could no longer fight against the aching lump in her throat, the tears that had been threatening off and on for days. Slumping over onto a pil ow, she began to cry al at once, sobbing as though she would never stop.

Usually Elyce felt better after a good cry. This time, when she final y raised her head from the sodden pil ow, reached for the box of tissues on the bedside table, wiped the last of the tears from her eyes and gave her nose a resounding blow, she felt no more clearer-headed than when she’d started. She felt drained, and had a headache just starting to throb behind her eyes, but had no idea at al what to do about her current situation.

To begin with, she faced a dilemma over whom to believe. Andrew’s motivation for deceit was obvious, but would he real y risk her wrath—and a possible slander suit

—just to make her life miserable? For surely he knew that was al that could ever come of this. He couldn’t possibly expect to win her over with this ploy. He was just seeking some sort of revenge against her because of his assumption that by deciding to make the Christmas trip with Karl, Elyce had decided to hop back in the sack with him too.

Never mind that it turned out to be a correct assumption. It was stil only an assumption, wrong to make, foolish to get mad over, crazy to plot revenge over.

She would have preferred to believe that people simply didn’t do things like plot revenge, but although she was idealistic, Elyce was hardly naïve. She was a grown woman, an attorney, had lived in a big city most of her life.

She was al too aware of the sorts of horrible acts people were capable of. She just hated to think she had almost gone to bed with someone who was wil ing to commit them.

But you were willing to marry Karl
, her mind offered up.

And then go to bed with him again, after you’d split up with
him. And you thought he was horrible.

But, she acknowledged, the jury was stil out on whether Karl real y was irredeemably horrible. If what Andrew claimed was true, even in part, then Karl was lying to her face and not just in an effort to get her back, something she could much more readily understand even if she couldn’t condone it. That sort of effort would actual y be flattering in its way, she supposed.

If he turned out to be doing what Andrew said he was doing…but how could she find out? She wouldn’t cal Andrew back, ask for any further proof. Not only could she not trust Andrew, she didn’t think she could make herself dial his number. He was the last person she wanted to talk to at that moment.

Her instinct said Karl was tel ing the truth about the whole thing now, that he had come clean. But if her instinct was wrong, what then? Should she pack her bags, pick up and go, stand on her principles and let holiday cheer be damned?

From downstairs she could hear the gentle strains of guitar music, the slightly rough but surprisingly tuneful voices chiming in on the old, familiar carols. They were attempting “Good King Wenceslas” but were laughing over getting bogged down on the words to the last few verses.

Good people
, she thought. People who deserved a merry Christmas and a happy New Year’s. Surely such good people hadn’t raised up an evil son?

Her subconscious whispered that it happened al the time. She wished her subconscious would shut up and let her think.

If it turned out Karl was absolutely blameless of Andrew’s charges, even if he had stil let her go on believing there was a development project to lure her up here and back into his bed under a false pretext, then how would she ever live down having walked out on him on Christmas day?

If it turned out that Karl was tel ing the truth… Here, Elyce’s subconscious mind took an unexpected vacation and she had to piece through the morning’s revelations on her own, the hard way. If Karl was tel ing the truth, it meant first of al that he had started, months ago, to rethink his company’s longstanding business plan and mission, and begun the process of transforming it from a traditional development concern—borderline evil—to an eco-friendly green firm—potential y good. Or at least he was trying, which she thought would probably have been a good enough start to keep her from leaving in the first place, had he started before she left.

Of course, he hadn’t started before she left. And he’d said that he wasn’t making the changes just to try to get her back. But then, he’d said repeatedly that he missed her. If he was real y wil ing to change and he was wil ing to go to extreme lengths to try to get her back, wasn’t al that worth some consideration?

On the other hand, even if Karl was to be believed, he had been extremely manipulative in letting her go on thinking the “development” of the Tahoe inlet shoreline was any threat to the local ecosystem. He had used the fact that she hadn’t read the proposal against her, gambled on that to con her into coming here for Christmas in the belief that her agreeing to participate in a marital charade for a week would result in the “development” being halted.

Although…she thought back over the proposition he’d made, the wording he’d actual y used. He’d asked if she wanted the inlet protected, and said that the proposed use wouldn’t harm the shrimp population. And real y, she had no excuse for not reading the proposal, which would have given her the information she needed to make an informed decision. If Karl had used her ignorance against her, it had been because she’d left herself open for it. He’d never actual y said that there was a development project or that it would be halted. Only that if she agreed to come for Christmas, the inlet would stay safe.

He’d known, of course, that the inlet was safe either way. But rather than simply tel her that, be straightforward about it and talk to her about the changing company policies, he’d used a sneaky stratagem to get her to agree.

And he’d used the sudden change in bedroom tactics to throw her off guard, to try a “different approach”, as he’d put it.

What other option did you leave him?

Where had
that
come from?

Elyce pondered her own question and found the answer after some uneasy self-examination.

She hadn’t left him any other options.

Since leaving him, she had not taken his cal s except when absolutely necessary, hadn’t agreed to meet him for dinner for fear he would seduce her and she wouldn’t be able to resist, which was indeed what had happened as soon as he’d gotten her alone. She had gone to his office a few times, but only to wrangle over legal details. After he’d given up simply asking her to come back to try to work things out, he’d resorted for a time to arguing with her when they did meet, but his heart never seemed to be in it. This latest ploy, she saw, was just the last in a long string of attempts that had, at the start, been quite straightforward.

Only her stubborn refusal to compromise had led him to try being devious instead.

And had it worked? Elyce had no idea. She had cried it over, thought it over, puzzled through al the variables, but stil had no idea what to do.

Deciding to start with what she did know, Elyce made a mental list of possibilities that were no longer on the table.

Item the first—Andrew Barron as a possible mate.

Never going to happen. Cross that one off the list. And cross his organization off the list of clients as soon as possible.

Item two—leaving the cabin before the holiday was over. Also crossed off. Because, Elyce had realized after some consideration, it was probably too late to get a plane ticket any sooner, not without paying an exorbitant premium and likely waiting hours on standby. And there was no way she would ask Karl to pay for it. It would be a rough week, nine more days actual y, but she would simply have to manage it.

Third item on the list… Elyce drummed her fingers on her thigh, squinting out the window without real y seeing the trees. Third known quantity…

Between Karl and Andrew, who do you really believe
is telling the truth?

Karl, she thought promptly. Karl.

She turned this new thought over in her mind, examining it from al angles. She had known Karl for years and while he was occasional y a control freak, and had been wil ing to join the ranks of the robber barons, he was basical y a good person. Her assessment of him as such hadn’t ever changed, even when she was at her angriest and most disappointed with him.

Even when he had given her a paddling over his knee.

She blushed at the memory, which she had been trying with little success to block out since it occurred. It was useless. For whatever reason, it had been one of the hottest things he’d ever done to her, and she wanted him to do it again. Admitting it to herself was easier, she knew, than admitting it to Karl. On the other hand, he seemed to enjoy working these confessions out of her.

Elyce took a deep breath and forcibly steered her thoughts away from the dangerous waters of their recently resumed but subtly altered sexual relationship. Too many unknowns there, by far.

So Karl was tel ing the truth, at least now that she’d confronted him, and Andrew was lying. She believed that. It felt true to her.

Did that mean that she wanted to go back to Karl?

That, of course, was the mil ion-dol ar question. And it was one, unfortunately, to which she stil didn’t know the answer.

* * * * *

Rejoining the family in the great room was a surreal experience. Elyce felt as though, in the short space of time between now and her previous visit to the room, the entire world had changed but she and Karl were the only two people who seemed to notice.

With an eerie sense of detachment, Elyce saw that it had started snowing very softly, just the lightest flurry of white to add a final touch of picturesque sparkle to the Yuletide scenery outside. Somebody, most likely Grandpa Charlie, had started a fire which was just starting to take hold and add its light and warmth to the room. The family, stil gathered by the tree and ranged across the sofa in front of the hearth, looked happy and beautiful and every inch the privileged bunch that they were.

Elyce had to remind herself that they were just people, with al the struggles and sorrows of any people, despite al their advantages. Charlie’s bout with lymphoma the previous year, and their concern that the cancer might return; the would-be twin that Wil and Kel y had lost to a partial miscarriage, a sister that Alicia would never know even after sharing a womb with her for close to five months; Reese’s struggle to learn to read, al the more frustrating to her book-loving family because the little girl was so clearly bright, even bril iant, in most other respects.