Tanya Michaels: Mistletoe Hero

“Doing what?” she demanded, exasperated that he’d cut her off again. “Bumping into people at the post office?”

“No, trying to micromanage my life! I’m not some pet project.”

That stung. She had Gabe’s best interests at heart. She wanted him to be whole and happy and she believed he was deluding himself when he said making peace with his father wasn’t part of that. “You know that’s not how I see you,” she said, opening her door.

“Do I? You appeared on the scene suddenly telling me what to do, trying to manipulate me into making changes.”

“Damn good changes!” Even if he was being too stubborn to admit the truth. “I’ve made more improvements on your so-called life in four weeks than you have in fourteen years! And this is the thanks I get?”

He clenched his jaw. “I didn’t ask for your interference, Arianne, and I don’t want it.”

She climbed out of the truck, so furious at the way he characterized her that she almost couldn’t speak. A manipulative control freak? Is that how he saw her? Her initial impression of Gabe had been that he wasn’t in the right emotional place for a relationship, and now she suspected she’d been correct. He wasn’t used to sharing his life with anyone else. Would he ever value her input, her attempts to demonstrate how much she cared about him, or was she simply making them both crazy?

She needed to stop clinging to the idea of what they could have together and simply let him be. “The good news is, you won’t have to worry about my ‘interference’ anymore. And don’t trouble yourself over the logistics of a long-distance relationship. A clean break is probably best for everyone.”

This time, she wasn’t going to wait for him to walk away.

Gabe’s week passed with agonizing slowness, each day dragging into the next. Even the would-be bright spot of his great phone interview dimmed when he realized he wanted to share the news with Arianne. Unfortunately she wasn’t speaking to him.

He toyed with the notion of apologizing to her, convinced enough of her feelings for him that he suspected he could get her to give him another chance. But why? It was an ugly pattern in their relationship, his capitulating. She’d tried to bully him, albeit charmingly, into volunteering for the fall festival and it certainly hadn’t been his idea to participate in this Man of the Year nonsense. If you gave Arianne an inch, she didn’t just take a mile, she built a freaking highway. Right through my life .

Sure, he missed her now, but once the initial pangs had passed, he’d realize that it was better this way. He didn’t want the stress of arguing with her, of fighting to maintain the right to make his own adult decisions. In a few weeks, he’d get over her and his life could calm down again.

But now, with the possibility of running into her around every corner, he was more eager than ever to get out of Mistletoe. Even seeing her brothers was a painful reminder.

When Tanner saw Gabe seated alone at the Dixieland Diner, the man took it upon himself to drop into the booth. “You look like hell, Sloan.”

What was it with the uninvited Waides and their unsolicited opinions?

“Coincidentally enough, my sister’s had that same expression for the past four days,” Tanner added.

I don’t want to hear about Arianne . “We’re not seeing each other anymore.”

“Yeah, I got that.”

“If you sat down to read me the riot act over the breakup, you should know that she was the one who-”

“No riot act,” Tanner assured him. “I love Arianne, but God help the man she ends up with. She’s a lot to take.”

Gabe had to bite his tongue to keep from defending her.

“I can understand why you decided it wasn’t working out,” Tanner added, “but it’s a onetime decision. Now that you’ve realized you’re not a good fit for each other, stay away from her. Because if you come back and break her heart, David and I are obligated as her brothers to break your legs.”

AS GABE MADE THE DRIVE to South Carolina for his face-to-face interview, he realized that tonight was the town vote where the Mistletoe Man of the Year would be selected. He found himself irrationally grateful that he’d be in another state at the time. Not that he cared about the title-he’d abdicate to someone else in the unlikely event that he won-but he didn’t like the embarrassment of a glaring loss, either.

Arianne was clearly insane if she thought people would choose him over Nick Zeth, a fireman considered good-looking and lovable; or Dylan Echols, who had played for the Atlanta Braves and was considered a celebrity in Mistletoe! And she called me deluded? Why couldn’t she accept that just because she believed in him, she couldn’t force her opinion on other people?

Probably because she was so accustomed to getting her way.

But he felt ashamed of the barbed thought as soon as he’d entertained it. Whatever her character flaws, she had believed in him. How many people could he say that about in his life?

“Crap!” Belatedly realizing that he’d missed his exit, Gabe prepared to turn the truck around and turned up his radio to drown out thoughts about Arianne Waide.

But she crept back into his mind anyway. When he parked his truck in front of the administrative building he was supposed to report to, he could almost hear her wishing him luck. You can do it! Go away, he told the phantom cheerleader, irrationally annoyed with her perky attitude. You didn’t even want me to get the job.

True, but she’d gone through his closet anyway and told him which ties made him look sharp and what outfits just made him look as if he was trying too hard. And she’d helped him refine his résumé. She was a lot like her mother, a nurturer. He suspected that Susan Waide wasn’t shy about giving advice to her children and husband, just as he suspected that advice was often right.

Had Gabe found Arianne’s meddling more overbearing than it really was simply because he wasn’t used to anyone caring enough about him to interfere?

Disturbed by the possibility that he’d judged her too harshly, he entered the building and told himself to focus. This interview could mean a fresh start and a new life for him. Maybe even work put toward a college degree. Get your head on straight.

But Arianne was too deeply entrenched in his thoughts for him to ignore. When the interviewer discussed a traditional campus festival they held in the spring, all Gabe could think about was Arianne in her pirate costume. And out of it. When Gabe saw the desktop picture of the man’s wife and child, he couldn’t help recalling the way Arianne looked holding Bailey. She’ll make a great mom .

She’d be fiercely protective, and he imagined that any child of hers would sometimes chafe under Arianne’s insistence that she knew best, but that child would also grow up secure in the knowledge that he or she was unconditionally loved.

Gabe had spent the better part of the interview so distracted that he was almost startled when it ended.

“I think that’s all the questions we have for you,” the man behind the desk said genially. “Unless you have any more for us, I’ll let Bruce show you around the grounds some. While the hiring committee writes up their applicant recommendation, you be thinking about whether or not, if offered the job, you could see making a home here at Whisthaven.”

Home . The word was a revelation. He’d felt torn recently, trying to decide if the right home for him was Mistletoe or somewhere else. But home wasn’t a place. It was a state of being-a sense of belonging, of knowing you were loved even if the people who loved you aggravated the hell out of you, a sense of security and the knowledge that someone else had your back, even while you argued that you could take care of yourself.