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The man stopped and faced her. His green eyes full of regret.
It was him! Without stopping, she ran forward and flung herself into his arms. “I can’t believe you’re finally here. Where are you going? Why didn’t you say something?”
He looked at a loss for words and then took a step back, raising his hands up. “I’m sorry. I wanted to but I can’t stay. It is really good to see you.” He turned and disappeared as quickly as he came.
Roni stared after him, her heart squeezing in her chest, her breath coming fast and furious, the snowflakes melting on her hot cheeks.
He’d been in her shop all along? Why hadn’t he said something?
After all this time?
After all the phone calls and the catching up they’d done over the last year?
She’d been counting the days until he’d come back home.
Until she could see him again.
He’d been right there in her shop and hadn’t said a word.
What game was Jimmy Duarte playing with her heart now?
CHAPTER2
Coward.
He was an absolute coward, Jimmy thought, even as he hightailed it away from Roni’s coffee shop. He should go back in there and talk to her, try to explain why he was running out on her.Again. He’d been so looking forward to seeing her again. To spending time with her.
But how could he tell her that it was his family’s business she was just railing against with her friends. That he was the son who hated Christmas.
The Scrooge.
He shook his head. Once he did, she would stop talking to him for good this time.
He knew she’d taken over running the Coffee Corner after her grandmother passed. It was why she couldn’t go to Denver with him all those years ago. What he didn’t know was that his family’s new business venture would hurt hers.
He should have guessed when his mom jumped into running his dad’s coffee shop with both feet, that she’d do whatever it took to make Frankie’s Coffee the number one coffee shop in Pineville.
His mother, once a world-famous tennis star, was highly competitive and never did anything halfway. Even though Frankie’s was his dad’s dream, once Dad got sick and needed help, it became her mission in life to make sure the coffee shop was a success for when his dad got back on his feet.
He couldn’t fault her for that. When his mom loved someone, she loved big.
He hurried through the park past the Santa booth and toward his car. Pineville had always been Christmassy, but it seemed to have gone Christmas crazy since he’d moved to Denver. Every business on Main Street was oozing with Christmas—take Roni’s place, for instance. The jingling of the Christmas bells on the door, the Christmas tunes piped through speakers, the smell of peppermint candles burning on every available surface. Even Roni herself, while looking adorable, could have been one of Santa’s elves.
A lot like her friend who was wearing an actual elf costume. Had the town gone nuts?
Once upon a time, when he was young, when Christmas was all about family and spending time together, he enjoyed the holidays. He loved going out with his dad and grandfather to cut down their tree, stringing popcorn and cranberries with his grandmother, and collecting pine cones for their old-fashioned Christmas. Those times were special, but those times were gone.
Now, he saw the season for what it was—a money-making, commercial manipulation. All the bright lights, blow-up decorations, movies playing in a loop on garage doors, holiday music piped through outdoor speakers, blinking strobe lights dancing across houses. It was almost more than he could take.
Especially when the gallery where he displayed his work started insisting he add Christmas to his paintings. Seriously? He would not compromise his art, his beautiful winter scenes, by adding colored lights and Santa hats.
Though he had to admit, Roni’s Santa hat looked adorable pushed onto of all those blond curls.
He shook the thought out of his head. He should never have called her. It had been ten years since he’d left, or even seen her. Ten years since that one Christmas when he’d come back with his heart in his hand and a diamond in his pocket, ready to propose, to change his life for her, and saw her with another guy.
That was a huge wake-up call.
Almost as big as the one he just got. He didn’t belong in Pineville. What was he thinking? His life was in Denver. He was only there to help his folks during the holidays until his dad was back on his feet. Once Roni discovered his parents owned Frankie’s, that he was the one who hated Christmas, she wouldn’t want to talk to him again, anyway.
