Page 30 of All I Want for Christmas
But then she turned and held a hand out, stopping him in his tracks. Her face was pale.
“That’s just it. Youdon’tthink, you do precisely what you want, Max. What’s best for you,” she said, her hands shaking.
“Please, listen to me. I know I let you down, but I had my reasons, okay?” He was about to explain, to tell her he’d fix everything, but she wasn’t giving him the chance.
“You talk about wanting to be different. To avoid getting ‘lost’ in this town that takes so much more than it gives. But I’d say Nashville suits you, Max.” Sadie’s words hit him like a transport truck into a brick wall, and he couldn’t catch his breath. “I don’t need your help anymore.” Her voice broke, but she held her head high. “Please let me go.”
Max had believed things had changed between them. That at this point they were far more than simply duet partners. But seeing how she now looked at him—like she wanted to be anywhere else—he suddenly realized that nothing had changed.
Max held up his hands, took a purposeful step back. “Fine, Sadie. Go.”
His tone held no warmth, because now he understood—and he was embarrassed to have so badly misread the situation. Max Brody wasnotnaïve, and yet... Damn, he had let himself fall for her. Sadie Hunter had her own agenda, and had fooled him—she’d never seen therealMax. No, clearly, she only saw the version of him that the paparazzi liked to play up—the spoiled Nashville prince who cared more about himself than anything, or anyone. And if that’s who she thought he was, well, he could play that role with his eyes closed.
Sadie wasted no time turning around and leaving him without another word.
He stood in the hallway for a time, hands shoved deeply into his pockets, staring into the empty space where she had just been, wondering how everything had so swiftly, epically, fallen apart.
—
Max walked back onto the soundstage, the celebrations in full swing, and spotted his manager by the champagne fountain. He strode toward her and said, “Bobbi, we need to talk.”
She excused herself from the conversation she’d been in and followed him over to a quiet corner. “We certainly do. What happened with our plan, Max? We had an agreement. Amalia’s ticked off. Me, too.” Then she looked around. “Where’s Sadie?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Max said, shaking his head. “I’m heading out of town.”
“Now? What for?” Bobbi looked surprised.
“I, uh, need to go check on one of our properties.”
Bobbi narrowed her eyes. “I have known you a long time, and so I know when you’re telling me a fib.”
He ran a hand through his hair, frustration buzzing inside him. “I need to clear my head, okay? Just for a week. Two tops.”
“You will clear your headhere, in Nashville. Max, this is the worst time for you to be away! We currently have that precious gift ofpositive momentum. It’s fleeting, as you know, and we need to take advantage of it. Get you and Sadie out on the town as much as we can! Make it splashy and sexy, okay? We’ll dealwith what didn’t happen onstage later. Maybe we can figure out an even better time for you to propose.”
“Hmm-hmm,” Max replied, distracted again by Cruz, who was talking with Tasha at the bar. They shook hands—like they had just made a deal. Then Cruz pointed at Max and Tasha turned around, giving him a wave and a thumbs-up. He wondered what that was all about, but then Bobbi pulled his attention back.
“There’s a lot on the line, Max. For everyone, not just you. You have two weeks before you have to start the album with Cruz. So whatever you have going on here...” Bobbi drew circles in the air in front of Max’s chest. “You’d better figure it out. And fast.”
—
Nearly twenty-four hours later Max stepped out of his rented pickup truck and into snow up past his ankles. After his early-morning flight from Nashville to Calgary, followed by a slow and somewhat treacherous drive—thanks to the recent snowfall—up the mountain toward Banff, Max was more than ready to relax.
A touch of the white stuff ended up inside his winter hiking boots, the painfully cold feel of it tingling against his skin. With Patsy tucked under his arm—her little body toasty in a hand-knit merino wool sweater—he filled his lungs with the mountain air, taking in the landscape. Snowcapped mountains surrounded him, the sky a shade of grey that let him know the bloated clouds would soon be dumping snowflakes faster than he’d be able to shovel them away.
It was dusk, New Year’s Eve, and it had taken Max most ofthe day to get here. He had debated calling Sadie a hundred times, but each time had remembered the look on her face just before she’d walked away from him for good.
He couldn’t believe how only a day ago they were getting ready for the finale, and were only hours away from winningStarmaker. How he had been nervously trying to sort out how to tell her how he felt about her, and why he couldn’t propose onstage in front of all those people who didn’t care about either of them. Max felt badly about breaking his promise to Sadie, to their managers, but in the end, he simply hadn’t been able to go through with it.At least I dodged that heartbreak bullet, he thought, now grateful that he hadn’t fake-proposed. But in reality, he hadn’t dodged anything. His heart still felt like it had been stomped on by a pair of newly heeled cowboy boots.
But that was all in the past now. Max had to think about his future, which is why he’d left the party after talking with Bobbi, had booked a morning flight to Calgary, and now stood in a foot of snow, having traded his cowboy boots for winter ones. And with every mile he had put between Nashville and these mountains, he had felt incrementally better.
Climbing a few steps to the cabin’s front door, he nudged a wedge of snow away from its base. Max turned the key in the lock, fumbling slightly with his gloved hand, and pushed the door open. It was chilly inside—it wasfreezingoutside, the sort of cold that made the tip of your nose go numb in seconds—but he’d get a fire going soon enough.
Max set Patsy down and she shook head to toe, like she had been for a swim. When he tugged the drop sheets off the couch and chairs, a puff of dust filled the air. He coughedonce, waving the air in front of him, and then patted the chair’s seat cushion.
“Up you get, Patsy Canine. I’ll get us a fire going soon, okay?”
She jumped to the chair—an impressive feat for a dog her size—and settled into the cushion with a happy little groan.
