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“I would have thought you’d find me safe, considering.”
“You were. You made me feel incredibly safe. That was part of what freaked me out.”
“How reassuring,” James replied.
Yeah, listening to what she was saying, Noelle wouldn’t buy it either. “I made a mistake,” she said.
“No kidding.” He shoved the chair away from his desk, causing her to jump. “I told you things I’ve never shared with anyone,” he said, as he stood up. “I opened up to you—and you were the one who pushed me.”
Shame at her behavior welled up inside her. “I know,” she replied.
“You made me think...” The rest of his sentence died when he ran his hand over his face. “I should have known. When I saw that mantel full of photos, I should have known I couldn’t compete with Kevin.”
“What?” No, he had it all wrong. “That’s not true.”
“Noelle, listen to yourself. Thirty seconds ago, you said you felt guilty.”
“Yes, but not because of my feelings for Kevin. I felt guilty because I realized Kevin couldn’t measure up to you.”
Confusion marked his features. “What?”
Noelle took a deep breath. After all his openness, he deserved to know her deepest secret. “Kevin was a special person,” she said. “Every girl in school wanted to date him, so I couldn’t believe how lucky I was that he wanted to be with me. Being Kevin Fryberg’s girl was the best thing that ever happened to me. Being part of the Frybergs was the biggest dream come true.”
“So you’ve told me,” James replied.
“But what I didn’t tell you was that Kevin was...he was like the big, wonderful brother I never had.”
The confusion deepened. “I don’t understand.”
“That’s the reason I felt so guilty,” Noelle said, moving to look out the window herself. “I loved Kevin. I loved our life together, especially when his parents were around. But we never had that phase where we couldn’t keep our hands off each other, and I just figured that was because we’d been together for so long. It wasn’t until shortly after the wedding that I realized I didn’t love him the way a wife should. But by that time, we were committed.”
Her fingers ran along the blinds lining the window. “And I had the family I’d always wanted. If he and I ended... So I stuck it out, figuring I’d eventually fall more in love with him. Then Kevin deployed.”
And then he died, leaving her the widow of the town hero and forced to keep pretending lest she hurt her surrogate family. She turned so she could study James with her damp gaze. “I didn’t know,” she whispered.
“Know what?”
“What it felt like to be truly attracted to someone. To have this continual ache in the pit of your stomach because you desperately want them to touch you. Until this past weekend. You made me feel out of control and off balance and it scared the hell out of me.”
“You could have told me,” he said. “I would have understood.”
“How was I supposed to tell you I could see myself falling for you, when it was those feelings that terrified me?” she replied. “Don’t you get it? I was afraid my feelings would blow up in my face and cost me the only family I’ve ever known.”
She waited, watched, while her confession settled over him. After a moment, he ran his hand over his face again and sighed. “If it frightened you, why are you telling me now?”
“Because you deserved to know,” she replied. “And because I’ve realized that family isn’t an either-or proposition. Nor is it about being related. It’s about love, pure and simple. So long as you have love, you have family.”
Risking his rejection, she walked toward him. When she got close enough, she took his hand. “And maybe all that greeting card stuff you despise is a myth, but Christmas can still be wonderful if you’re with someone special. Please don’t close off the part of you that believes that too.”
But James only looked down at their hands. Noelle could take a hint. Foolish of her to think an apology would change much. At least she’d tried. “Anyway, that’s what I came to tell you. That you’re on the lovable side of the bell curve, and that I wish I hadn’t messed up, because there’s nothing I would like more than to have been your someone special this Christmas.”
“Are you still scared?”
A spark lit in her heart. There was hope in his voice. He was trying to fight it, but it was there. “Terrified,” she replied.
His grip tightened around her fingers. “Me too.” Slowly, he lifted his gaze and she saw brightness sparkling in his eyes. “I’ve never had anyone think I’m special before,” he told her.
