Ross put his cup down and sat in a chair opposite her. Lifting his jean-clad legs, he used the end of the foldout as a footrest, crossing his bare feet there. “Not that remarkable, really. I inherited the position. It’s my family’s company.”

  Lucy’s mouth rounded into an O. “Your father…”

  “Yeah.”

  “How is he?” she asked. “Did he…”

  “Pull through? Yes, he did. It took a long time, a lot of rehab and he still doesn’t have full use of his right side, but he made it.” Chuckling but only half-joking, he added, “He’s still the same demanding tyrant he always was.”

  It would take more than a massive stroke to get his old man to stop being bossy, pushy and opinionated. And Ross should know; he dealt with that bossy, pushy opinion every damn day.

  His name might be on the letterhead of Elite Construction, but his dad still held a lot of shares. They’d had a few major battles once the elder Marshall had started feeling like his old self again. It had only been lately, in the past year or so, that he’d conceded Ross was doing an excellent job, and stopped questioning every little decision.

  Not that Ross wasn’t very grateful his dad had lived, of course. Though they hadn’t been getting along at the time, he’d been shocked and devastated by his father’s massive stroke six years ago. Though he’d only been fifty-five, nobody had thought he would make it, not the doctors or the industry. Nobody except his family, who knew Ross Marshall, Sr. was too stubborn to do what everyone predicted he would.

  “I’m so glad he survived,” Lucy murmured.

  “Thanks.”

  He didn’t doubt she meant it. But he also didn’t doubt Lucy’s mind had gone right where his had—to the timing of his father’s stroke. She’d been there when he’d received the frantic phone call from his sister at the crack of dawn on Christmas morning. After a weekend of pure excitement and happiness with Lucy, his world had come crashing down with one conversation.

  His entire life had changed on a dime. Before that, he’d known he would someday go back to Chicago and take his place beside his father in the business. But he’d thought he had time—a couple of years, at least—to live the life he wanted. Hell at that particular moment, he’d even been considering asking Lucy if she thought he might be able to pick up some carpentry work in France for a year or two. They’d gotten that serious that quickly.

  Then the phone had rung. His sister’s sobs had finally made sense, and he’d left for the airport right away. As much as he’d hated bailing out on Lucy on Christmas Day, she’d been completely understanding. Hell, if anyone would understand, it would be her—she’d received her own horrifying phone call one holiday season.

  He’d wasted no time packing, not even a single bag. He’d been desperate to get back to Chicago, convinced his father was on the verge of death. And horrified, realizing that the last words they’d exchanged had been angry ones.

  The vigil at the hospital had been long and difficult. He’d dealt not only with the worry, and with his family, but also with stepping right in to look after the company. That, in itself, had been a battle, considering he was so young. But he hadn’t been about to let the whole thing founder while his father fought for his life.

  Despite being so busy, he’d found time to call Lucy every day that first week—especially knowing she had a tough anniversary of her own to contend with. During each call, she’d expressed concern about his father, but inevitably the conversation would turn to her preparations for her upcoming trip. Her plans for her future. Her great life.

  Then a couple of days went between his calls.

  Then a week.

  Then it was almost time for her to leave for her semester abroad.

  And he’d stopped calling.

  “I never stopped thinking about you. I swear, you were on my mind constantly.” He got to the point, the main thing he wanted to say. “I’m sorry, Lucy.”

  “For?”

  “You know what for. I couldn’t stop thinking about you…but I couldn’t bring myself to call you, either.”

  She stiffened, didn’t reply for a second, then tossed off a casual, “Hey, don’t sweat it. The phone lines were notoriously unreliable that year.”

  He saw through the feigned humor. She’d been plenty hurt yesterday; no way had she gotten over it in one single night.

  But, maybe last night had at least opened her to the possibility that he wasn’t a user who’d taken her for the ride of a lifetime then dropped her flat.

  “You know, I never went back to New York.”

  Her brow went up. “What about your house? Your things?”

  “I hired somebody to take care of it that winter, once it became obvious that not only was my dad going to have a long recovery ahead of him, he would almost certainly never be able to work again.”

  “That must have been really tough.”

  “Tough doesn’t begin to describe it.” He swiped a hand through his hair and sighed. “Anyway, I didn’t mean to get into all that. I just brought it up so I could finally tell you what I meant to tell you then and never got the chance to say.”

  She eyed him warily. “And that would be?”

  He held her gaze, daring her not to believe him. “That I fell in love with you that weekend in New York.”

  She sucked in an audible breath, and slowly shook her head.

  Ross nodded, not worrying about looking like a fool or fearing any kind of rejection. Maybe something great would happen between him and Lucy now. Maybe it wouldn’t, and last night would be his final memory of a relationship he’d once thought would define his whole life. But no matter what, he owed her the truth about the past.

  “It’s true. I was crazy in love with you.”

  “You might have told me…”

  “To what purpose?”

  Rolling her eyes and looking at him like he was an idiot, she said, “Maybe just because the words would have been nice to hear once in my life?”

  He couldn’t imagine no man had ever fallen in love with the beautiful woman in front of him. But he didn’t particularly want to think about her with anyone else. The very idea made his stomach heave.

  “Maybe I should have,” he said with a simple shrug. “But I was trapped.”

  She tilted her head in confusion.

  “Lucy, you were about to leave to go grab the world by the balls.”

  She didn’t try to deny it, but a wistful expression crossed her face, as if she were remembering the feisty, passionate girl she’d been. One of these days, hopefully, he’d find out what had brought her back here, why she was photographing children when she’d sworn she would do anything but.

  Right now, though, he had his own story to tell.

  “But me? Dad was on his deathbed, my family was falling apart, and I was the one who had to hold them—not to mention this business—together.” He rose from his chair and walked to the fold-out, sitting beside her and reaching out to stroke a silky strand of her hair. “My life was here. It is here. Yours was—” he waved a hand “—out there. We were going to be living in two different worlds and as much as I wanted you in mine, I knew that wasn’t going to happen. Just because my dreams fell apart didn’t mean I could ask you to give up yours.”

  “So…you let me go?”

  A simple nod. “I let you go.”

  Moisture appeared in her eyes, though no tears spilled from them. Sniffing, she curled her face into his hand, rubbing her soft skin against his.

  They remained silent for a long time. The room was quiet enough that he could hear the plink of tiny, icy snowflakes striking the window. Then, with a low sigh, Lucy looked up at him and smiled.

  “Thank you for telling me,” she whispered.

  “You’re welcome.”

  Nothing else. No promises. No requests. It was as if they’d just wiped clean the slate and could now start again, fresh. And see where the road took them.

  “I’VE GOT TO ADMIT IT, Papa Bear, this beats porridge any day.”

  Lucy licked a few cookie crumbs off her fingers, sighing in satisfaction at the strange Christmas Eve brunch they’d just shared. Cookies, eggnog, cheese and crackers, chips, chocolate and fruit.

  The food at the party had been plentiful and delicious. It had also kept very well in the large refrigerator, which was doing a pretty good job holding its temperature despite the power outage. Though, if they were going to be stuck here much longer, they were going to have to ditch the eggnog in favor of unopened bottles of soda or fruit juice.

  “I think there’s even some leftover sliced turkey for Christmas dinner,” he replied. “If it comes to that.”

  Judging by the way it continued to snow, it could definitely come to that.

  She should be bothered by it. Should be worried about being trapped, should at least be freaked out about not having a spare pair of underwear—not that she expected to wear them for long.

  But the truth was, she didn’t care. She had no obligations to anyone else, didn’t have holiday plans, other than shopping. Her brother had already been scheduled to work all weekend, and with the weather, she doubted he’d have time to even drop by before Monday or Tuesday.

  So why not spend a few days trapped in a secure building with plenty of food and water, and someone to provide plenty of entertainment. If, that was, she could survive that much…entertainment.

  “I guess this meets your requirements for a nontraditional Christmas, huh?”

  “Hey, I ate a bell-shaped cookie, didn’t I?” Then she chuckled. “Though, believe it or not, I’ve gotten a little less stringent about that.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Kate has kids now, and I actually went and spent Christmas with them a couple of years ago. It was…nice.”

  More than nice. It had been lovely. Sweet and wholesome and fun. And yes, a bit painful. But after many years, Lucy had been able to let down her guard and let some of the magic of the season back into her heart. She wasn’t ready to go out and chop down a tree or download a copy of Now That’s What I Call Christmas #948 to her MP3 player. But she could at least hum Silent Night—her mother’s favorite Christmas carol—and not want to break into tears.

  “You must know I’m curious…”

  “About?”

  “Paris. Europe. Photographing Fashion Week, landing the cover of Vogue?”

  She sighed, remembering that girl, those dreams. How important they’d once seemed, when she was running away from anything resembling the life she’d once had and so painfully lost. Changing her plans completely had helped her evade the memories for a little while, but not forever. Eventually she’d had to face them.

  She explained that to him, as best she could, wondering if the explanation would make any sense to anybody else.

  When she was finished, Ross nodded slowly. “And now that you know you don’t have to go halfway across the world to keep from caring too much about anyone or anything…are you happy?”

  Wow. He’d obviously read between the lines. She hadn’t mentioned anything about not wanting to care about anyone. But she couldn’t deny it was true.

  “I’m happy,” she admitted. “I love what I do—you remember how I swore I’d never work with kids?”

  “Even though you were great at it.”

  “Exactly. I guess I was the last one to see it. But I love it, and I’m good. I’ve had more success with my kid portraiture than I ever did with adults. I actually had a photo in Time magazine last year.”

  He whistled. “Seriously?”

  “Yep. I’ve had shots picked up by the AP, and magazines and catalogs. I actually just submitted a photo essay for Parents Place Magazine as well, and I’m hoping they’ll take me on for more freelance work.”

  “Sounds wonderful,” he told her, sounding like he meant it. “I’m really happy for you.”

  “Thanks.” Suddenly remembering something, and knowing he’d be interested, she said, “Oh, guess who I ran into a year or so ago in New York?”

  He raised a curious brow.

  “Remember Jude the jackass?”

  His sneer said he did. “Please tell me he ended up in prison being some Bubba’s bitch.”

  “No, but his daddy did.”

  Ross’s jaw dropped.

  “His family ran one of those businesses that was ‘too big to fail.’ Only, it failed during the financial melt-down. Daddy went to jail, the family lost everything. Jude was very humbled—and very poor—when I ran into him.”

  “Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.”

  Almost unable to remember the girl she’d been when she’d thought Jude could be “the one,” she said, “I guess that catches you up with what’s been going on with me.”

  And he’d already caught her up on what his life had been like. It had been full of family and work and duty. Not much downtime, from the sound of it, although he had apparently had time to start building that dream house of his—oh, she would love to see it.

  As for his personal life, though she hadn’t pried, not wanting to be nosy, she had sort of rejoiced when he admitted he hadn’t had any romantic relationship that had lasted longer than six months. That made two of them.

  “Wait, what about your brother?” Ross asked. “Does he still give you ugly snow globes every Christmas?”

  She chuckled, thinking about the collection that she set out every single year. With the exception of the broken groovy Santa, she still had each and every one.

  “I put out my entire collection every holiday season.”

  “All of them?” he asked, his voice soft and serious.

  She knew what he was asking. Knew he wondered if she’d kept the one and only Christmas present he’d ever given her. Considering she’d been heartbroken shortly after he’d given it to her, the answer probably should have been no. But in truth, she’d never been able to part with that special gift, even though, every time she took it out of its box, she’d wondered about Ross. Where he was, what had happened to him.

  Now she knew. He’d been living his life as best he could…after having freed her to follow her dreams.

  “Yes, Ross,” she murmured. “Every one.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “Me, too.” Then, wanting to keep the mood light, she added, “The one my brother got me last year had to take the prize for kookiest ever.”

  “Do tell.”

  “Sam found one from some weird cult that believes the three wise men came from another planet. Balthazar had green skin and claws. Melchior had a spiked tail. And the other one was furry all over.”

  Tossing his head back, Ross laughed. “Please don’t tell me the baby Jesus was an alien, too.”

  “No, but he looked terrified.”

  “Is it any wonder? I mean, with the cast of a bad episode of Star Trek standing over him?”

  Snorting as she realized that’s exactly what the three kings had looked like, she got up and began clearing away the plastic dishes they’d used for their late-morning feast. They’d eaten in the break room, since it was closest to not only all the food, but all the supplies, too.

  “So, you ready to go down and check things out?” Ross asked.

  They’d agreed that, after eating, they would head downstairs to the lobby and try to get a better idea of what was going on outside. From up here on the sixth floor, it looked like they were trapped in a spaceship that had landed on a marshmallow planet.

  “Ready when you are.”

  Though they didn’t expect to get anywhere, the two of them dressed warmly. They had raided a coat closet to add layers to their own clothes. There were a few jackets, scarves and hats that had been left behind over the years—enough so that they shouldn’t freeze if they dared to step outside.

  Once they trudged down the six floors to the lobby, and saw that the snow had drifted almost all the way up the glass doors, though, Lucy realized they needn’t have bothered.

  “This is crazy!” she said, standing up on tiptoe to try to see over the white mountain. “Can you see the parking lot?”

  Ross cupped his hand around a spot of glass that wasn’t obscured by snow. “There are three lumps out there—I assume your car, mine and the security truck. It would take a sled and a team of dogs to get us to them, though.”

  Meaning, even if the power came on and the streets were cleared, they weren’t going anywhere until Ross’s private snow removal contractor showed up to clear the walks and the parking lot. And who knew when that would be?

  “We’re not going anywhere, are we?”

  “Nuh-uh.” He turned to face her. “Is that okay? I mean…you’re not scared about being trapped here, are you?”

  She scrunched her brow. “Have you turned into a cannibal sometime in the last six years?”

  He wagged his eyebrows. “You complaining about what I like to eat?”

  Good Lord, she was never going to complain about that for the rest of her life.

  “Never mind,” she said, knowing she sounded off balance.

  The man was good at distracting her, putting wild thoughts in her head. He was good at a lot of things. Making her laugh, making her sigh, making her crazy. Giving her incredible pleasure.

  At twenty-two, she’d found Ross Marshall to be the sexiest guy she’d ever met. Now, six years later, she knew he was more than that. Still sexy, oh, without a doubt. Probably even more so, actually, because he had a ton of confidence and a man’s mature personality to go along with the looks and charm.

  But she now saw him as a whole lot more than a broke carpenter with a bean bag chair and a lava lamp. He was successful, very smart, and incredibly likable. She’d seen the way he talked to all those people at the party yesterday; now, knowing he was their employer, she was even more impressed.

  “Seriously, you’re not too worried, are you?” he asked. “We have plenty of food, the building’s secure. And I don’t think it’s going to get unbearably cold. If it does, we can move to an interior room with no windows.”

  She shook her head. “Honestly, I’m not worried. The only question is, what on earth are we going to do to occupy ourselves?”