Page 119 of The Christmas Fix
“Cat. What I’m trying to say here is.I’mperfect for you.I’mwhat you’re looking for. I know it’s crazy. I know it’s not what we talked about. But I would spend the rest of my life regretting it if I let you walk away. Stay. Or I’ll go with you. Logistically, it would be more complicated. Sara, Mellody and Ricky, April and her parents, they’d all have to come with us. But I will find a way, Cat.”
“Noah—”
“Don’t say no. Since you came into my life, I’ve started saying yes, and it feels so damn good.”
“Noah, stop.” Cat held up her mittened hand. “I need to show you something.”
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
“You’re dragging me somewhere private so you don’t crush me in front of my town, aren’t you?” Noah demanded as Cat pulled him up the stairs to his office.
“Don’t be so dramatic,” she sighed, pulling the key out of her pocket. She pushed it into the lock. “Now, tell me what time it is.”
Impatient, Noah glanced at his watch. “Almost midnight.”
“Good enough. Merry Christmas, Noah.” Cat pushed the door open and stepped aside.
Noah frowned and reached for the light switch as he crossed the threshold.
“What the hell? I thought you were redoing the roof?”
She’d gutted his office from leaky ceiling to creaky floor with her own money. The floors, sanded and stained, gleamed a deep caramel. A huge rug, from Drake’s new collection, covered the floor. The walls were painted a deep navy, the shoulder-height wainscoting was stained dark to match the built-ins behind the desk.
The big walnut desk was Cat’s pride and joy. She’d made it herself with a guiding hand from Gannon, of course. Simple, classic, durable. Like the man who would sit behind it.
Noah wandered, open-mouthed, picking up trinkets, running his hands over new wood. “How? How did you ever do all this?”
Cat shrugged. “I’m a miracle worker, remember?”
His face lit up. “A new coffeemaker?”
Cat laughed. Trust Noah to be impressed by the mundane/functional/efficient.
“I can’t believe you did this.”
“For you,” Cat added. “I did this for you.”
He moved behind the desk, trailing a palm over the silk smooth surface before sinking down into the leather chair. “This is too much.”
“This was supposed to be a goodbye present,” Cat said, swallowing hard.
She saw the pain, the sharp edge of it in his eyes and pressed on.
“After we started… getting to know each other,” she shook her head and tried to clear the emotion from her throat. “I just. You’re the best person I know. You work hard, you try hard. You want to fix everything and protect everyone. You could have gone a hundred different directions because of your father. But you became this quiet, steady hero, and I just wanted you to have something really, really great before I packed up and left town.”
“Before you moved on,” he added quietly. He fidgeted with a pen she’d left on the desk blotter.
She nodded. “Yeah. But somewhere along the line, this stopped being a goodbye present. It became a present present.”
“A present present?”
“Shut up, Noah. I’m not good at this, and if you keep interrupting me it’s going to come out so much worse.”
He held up his hands.
Cat cleared her throat again. The clock tower chimed midnight, and they listened to every bong of the bell. It rang clear and sweet. And on the twelfth strike, Cat could hear the distant notes of “For Old Acquaintance.”
“What I’m choking on here is that I love you, and I wanted to tell you, but I didn’t want you to get attached, get hurt. The network offered me a new show if I move the school to L.A.”
