Mistletoe Mine Read Online Free PDF Page B

I’d like you to meet Ali Timberlake, owner of the Yellow Kitchen, the best restaurant in Colorado.”
    “Oh, Celeste,” the other woman said with a roll of her eyes as she set her tray on the buffet.
    Emma was thrilled at the interruption. She and Ali Timberlake had spoken on the phone a number of times as they planned the reception menu. She stepped toward Ali, her hand outstretched as she said, “Ali, it’s lovely to finally meet you. I’m Emma.”
    “And I’m Jared,” he said, coming up behind Emma.
    Ali shook their hands, complimented Emma on her talent, then presented the items on the buffet. “If anything doesn’t suit your fancy or if you want to add something to the menu, just let me know. We still have time to make changes.”
    “I’m sure we’re going to love everything, Mrs. Timberlake,” Molly said. “Charlie still goes into moans of rapture about your Alfredo sauce any time Italian food gets mentioned.”
    Emma asked a few reception-menu questions, more as a delaying tactic than out of curiosity, but soon the other women left the Stapleton family alone. Emma and Jared stood frozen in place. Molly spoke with false brightness. “We’d better eat while it’s hot.”
    Emma had sat through uncomfortable meals in the past, but this one topped them all. The food was delicious, and Emma had no concerns about that part of the wedding. Molly babbled on about centerpieces and music, and Emma’s discomfort grew. This was ridiculous. They were acting like children. She was just about to speak when Jared set down his fork and said, “Enough. This is absurd. Molly, please excuse yourself and allow your mother and me some privacy.”
    Molly glanced from one parent to the other and hesitated. “I’m not sure—”
    “Molly,” Emma snapped. “This is what you wanted when you set this little meeting up. Let us deal with it.”
    Their daughter could be as stubborn as Rocky Mountain granite. “But I haven’t eaten my dinner.”
    “Load your plate on the way out,” Jared said.
    She huffed and lifted her nose in the air, but she finally sashayed out of the room. In the moment that the door shut behind her—loudly—an unexpected thing happened. Emma’s gaze met Jared’s … and they shared a smile.
    For Emma, it was a flashback to another time, a good time when their family was … a family. The smile was a pin that popped the balloon of tension hanging in the room, but as that force dissipated, another emotion filled the void. Sadness. She felt it, and she could see it on Jared’s face.
    How had they come to this?
    The ugliness of their fight in the wake of Frank’s suicide had been the catalyst, of course. They both had been mired in pain and guilt, and had been furious at the actions the other had taken. They’d said some terrible, injurious things to each other. But even as she’d packed her bag and stormed out of the house, she’d never expected it to be the end of their marriage. She’d thought they’d needed a cooling-off period.
    Somehow, though, cool had become frigid, then frozen. Frozen things shatter when dropped.
    Divorce was the word, the sound, of their frozen marriage hitting the ground.
    “Well …” she began, then faltered for more to say.
    One side of his mouth lifted in a grim smile. “Yeah, well. So did you know what she had in mind?”
    “Suggesting we …” She couldn’t make herself say the D-word, so she skipped it. “No. She told me she wanted us to spend Christmas together so that we wouldn’t be tense and awkward with each other during the wedding.”
    “That’s what she told me.”
    Silence fell between them now, with awkward and tense being the words of the day. Emma’s throat closed up, and pressure built behind her eyes. I will not cry. I will not cry!
    Jared drummed his fingers against the table. Emma felt the weight of his gaze on her, but she couldn’t make herself return it. She feared that if she did, when faced with the coldness in his eyes