Stranded for Christmas Read online

  “Okay, I will.” I pull on the jacket and step outside, the hurt filling me like I’ve never experienced. Not even when my fiancée left me for a hotel chain manager. It makes it hard to breathe in this cold as I make my way to the running tow truck, climbing in the passenger seat.

  Ted grinds the gears a bit as he takes off slowly and silence hangs between us for a long moment. He coughs as if to clear his throat, pulling my attention to him and he gives me a knowing look.

  “So… Caroline is a special kind of somethin’, ain’t she?” He smiles and I give him a chuckle.

  “Yeah. Something.” The snow banks are at least four feet high on this back road and Ted is navigating it slowly, his flashing lights giving caution to anyone else that would dare go out driving even though there is a ban in affect.

  “To tell you the truth, I wasn’t expectin’ you to actually come with me.”

  “And why is that?” I try to act indifferent but his laugh fills the cab.

  “Boy, are you that rich that your money is blocking your brain cells?” I try to ask him what he’s talking about but he continues on quickly. “I could see it in the five minutes that I was there last night. There is something goin’ on between you two, but it looks like neither of you were smart enough or brave enough to say it.”

  “And how the hell would you know that? You don’t even know me.” A moment later I’m bracing myself against the dashboard when Ted slams on the brakes, the tow truck fishtailing on the slippery road but finally coming to a stop sideways in the middle of the road.

  “I may not know you, Mr. Rich and Famous, but I know Caroline. Hell, I was best friends with her oldest brother so I’ve seen that girl grow up. I’ve seen her have crushes, I’ve seen her in what she thought was love and I’ve seen her heartbroken. But… I’ve never seen her look the way she did when you put your arm around her last night. And I saw it in your eyes too, don’t try and hide it from me, boy. I’ve been there. So God damn love struck that you don’t know how to act or what to say. It’s like it’s stole the breath right out of your chest.”

  What. The. Fuck. Is this for real right now? He’s giving me a hard look, waiting for me to snap out of this. Finally I face it, he’s right. “Yeah. Exactly. It hurt to walk away from her.”

  “Good, it should.” He laughs, his smile warm and coaxing one to my own lips. “That’t when you know it’s for real, for life. When it hurts so bad when you’re apart that you feel like running naked through a frozen tundra to get back to her.”

  “That’s it!” I’ve got it and I’m frantically pulling the door handle, my boots finding the snow. “Can I borrow one of those snowmobiles?”

  “Sure. Caroline knows where the keys are at my house.”

  “Thanks!”

  “What? Wait…I didn’t mean to run literally.” I hear him say when I slam the door shut, but I’m already sprinting my way back towards Caroline’s. “I can give you a ride back!” he shouts but I just turn and wave.

  “I’d rather run!” I see him shake his head and smile, waving as he continues on down the road toward town. My nose is stinging from the cold, but I don’t care. All I care about is getting back to her and seeing if she’ll give this a go.

  ~~~~

  Caroline

  The tail lights of the wrecker disappear and my heart drops. The tears I’ve been holding back all morning finally find my lashes and one slowly drips down my cheek. Bullet’s nose nudges my palm, he can sense when I’m sad or angry, and I kneel down and hug him tight.

  “Oh, Bullet. I’m glad you aren’t leaving me anytime soon.” Patting him on the back he licks my cheek, barking and hopping around as I stand. He jumps up and grabs his favorite tennis ball from the bench by the door, bringing it and setting it at my feet. “Alright, boy, we’ll go out and play. Let me get dressed.”

  Going to put some thick socks on, I spot something on my dresser. Three-hundred dollar bills and a phone number scrawled on the old magazine tell me this was his way of telling me to call him. Really? Why couldn’t he just said ‘Hey, this is my number. Give me a call sometime.’ It make me angry and I crumple the money and magazine in a ball and shove it into the top drawer, grabbing the socks and stomping my way back into the front room.

  “I just knew this just a bunch of shit. Why did I even agree to him coming here? I should’ve just let him freeze his ass off in his car.” Pulling my jacket and hat on, my boots slip a bit on my porch and I throw Bullet’s ball out into the snow, watching as he bounds after it.

  “He had a perfect ass.” I mumble to myself, the anger building and I chuck the ball this time, watching the black and white of my dog hopping in and out of the snow fetching it.

  I’m a big girl, I need to pull myself up and get over this bullshit. So what, I had a one-night stand. Lots of people have those every day. And, hell, I had mine with someone kind of famous. What the hell? You know, I should be happy. I got laid.

  Oh, who am I kidding? It wasn’t just sex. It really felt like something else, something I’ve never felt even when I thought I was in love with my ex.

  Bullet is half way to me when he darts off toward the road. “Come back, Bullet!” I shout into the wind as it kicks up the snow, blocking my view of him. I high step it into the driveway, trying to shield my eyes from the blowing snow and I can hear him barking happily.

  “Oh, great. What kind of dead animal did you find?” The wind dies down and my voice echoes with his barking. Knowing he hasn’t run into the road I’m brushing the snow from my jeans when a familiar voice surrounds me.

  “Nothing dead. Just me.” He says and I look up into his light green eyes. He’s got that stupid TMNT hat on and he’s panting for some reason. I look around him, expecting to see the tow truck in the road. “Oh, I ran.” He shrugs.

  “You ran? From where?” I can’t imagine even a short distance being any kind of fun in boots and this cold. But that doesn’t really matter right now. “More importantly, why?”

  He steps up close, his breath surrounding me. “I don’t know how to say this and that scares the shit out of me. I’ve never been like this about a woman. I’ve always known what to say and how to act, but with you I’m all mixed up.” He reaches out, grabbing my hands, bringing them to his chest. “Caroline, I’ll understand if you want me to leave, but I think we might have something here and I don’t want to give it up so easily.”

  “Really?” Am I knocked out in the snow and hallucinating? Is Shane really telling me that he felt that something too?

  “Yes. As Ted put it, you’re some kind of special, and I don’t want to let it go without really knowing what it is.” He pulls me in and I smile up at him, my fingers grasping his jacket not wanting to release it. “So, what do you say? Want see where this goes?”

  “Yes.” I say without hesitation, letting my heart speak for me for the first time in my life. “I really do want to see where this goes, Shane.” His smile lights up his handsome face and he leans down, capturing my lips, taking my breath away in a second.

  I’m melting into him and he’s practically holding me up when he releases me, his lips finding my forehead as I try to catch my breath. He hugs me tight and we just stand here, no sounds except the wind, Bullet barking at his tennis ball and our heartbeats.

  “So do you want to have Christmas dinner with my parents?” He asks and I laugh at the boyish look on his face. “They are nothing special, but I know they’ll like you and my mom makes a killer ham dinner.”

  “Okay,” I nod, kissing him on the cheek. “You had me at ham dinner.” He jokingly pushes me away a little before pulling me in tight, kissing my hair. And then it dawns on me. “But how are we going to get there?”

  “Ted said I could use a snowmobile. He said you’d know where the keys are.” Oh the ever trusting Ted. He’s a good man.

  “Well I need to go change and make sure Bullet has enough food and water for the day.” I start up the stairs and he’s right behind me.

  “You
look beautiful just the way you are.” He swings me around for a long, panty-melting kiss and I’m about ready to pull him inside and push him down on the hardwood floor when he pulls away, smiling knowingly. “And bring Bullet. My dad always loved dogs like him and my nieces and nephew will have a blast with him.”

  “Well, alright.” I quickly run in, grab an old tote and shove in my purse, a bottle wine and a tin of cookies I made, and lock up, making my way towards Ted and Chrissy’s house. I snake my arm around Shane’s waist and his arm goes over my shoulders, pulling me close with Bullet out in front of us.

  “Well I guess that snow helped us out.” I say, looking up into those hypnotizing green pools. He kisses me softly.

  “Yeah, it sure did, beautiful.”

  EPILOGUE

  Caroline

  One Year Later

  Christmas Eve

  “It has been a crazy year for us, hasn’t it, beautiful?” Shane’s arm wraps around my shoulders, pulling me back into him as I watch the snow lightly fall outside.

  “It sure has.” I smile and kiss his chin when he leans forward. I have to laugh looking back over the last year. Heck the first day, last Christmas, I met his parents and not even ten minutes after arriving his mom asked me when the wedding was going to be. We has brushed it off, but not even a full week later in front of my entire family on New Years Eve, Shane got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. My aunt fainted when he opened the ring box to a 2 carat solitaire diamond ring.

  We didn’t make a big deal about the wedding, having a family and close friends ceremony on Valentine’s Day in the small church in town. A large, well-known magazine called it the ‘Country-Chic Wedding of the Year’, whatever that means. We didn’t go on a honeymoon until March because of Shane’s work and while in Rome I discovered that I was pregnant. We had thought I was dehydrated and had taken a trip to small clinic, so can you imagine our surprise? Shane cried shocked, happy tears right along with me as we embraced.

  He’s kept a close eye on me since, but I’ve had a smooth pregnancy. I’ve been on leave from work for a week, as I’m due time now, and it was hard leaving my store since I’ve become Manager. All of my employees at Torrance’s seem happier to be there since my promotion and Mr. Torrance’s early retirement; brought on by a threat of divorce from his wife if he didn’t.

  So a lot has happened since the snow storm last year, and I couldn’t be happier. My little cabin is our home away from the city and we come here as often as we can. Bullet is always happy to run in the woods instead of our groomed lawn in the suburbs, but I’d be happy wherever Shane is.

  “Go on and sit on the couch, I’ll bring you some hot chocolate.” He kisses my cheek again and I waddle my way to the couch, grabbing the arm when I feel an unfamiliar pressure build around my back and stomach. It squeezes and I breathe through it, taking it as just a gas issue and take a seat, flipping through the channels.

  Hearing Shane singing along with the movie I have to laugh until the same pressure returns and couple of minutes later, lasting about the same amount of time and then fading. Slowly getting up I go to the bookcase and pull out the childbirth book they give everyone that attends birthing classes at the hospital. I try to find the section I’m looking for as the feeling returns again and I lean with my hand on a kitchen chair propping me up. Finding the labor stages pages and overwhelming nervous feeling descends when I realize that I’m most likely in active labor.

  “What’s up, beautiful?” Shane asks at my back and I turn, in the throes of another contraction with the book still open to the page. I just hold it out to him trying to breathe through this calmly and see the realization in his eyes.

  “Now?” Is what he asks and I can’t help but laugh, walking toward him.

  “I guess so.” I try to smile, but I’m just plain scared. One second I’m fine and the next I’m in labor. But there’s no going back now. “Please get our bags and the keys.”

  “Already on it.” He puts the mugs down and leaps over the couch as I’m on my way to put my boots and jacket on. It’s only a minute or two that passes, but it seems like forever before he returns and throws on his own jacket and boots, tying my scarf around my neck for me as I lean into the door trying to work through another one.

  “Bullet, be good.” I breathlessly tell him, patting him on the head. “Mrs. Chrissy will be over to check on you and we’ll be back before you know it, with your baby brother or sister for you to kiss.” He licks my hand, again as if he knows what I said to him and then we’re locking up and the snow if falling around us.

  “I guess Christmas snow signals good things for us.” Shane says as he helps me in, literally tossing the bags and pillows in the back seat of his Landrover and sliding in the driver’s seat.

  “Yeah, Merry Christmas to us.” I smile as he brings my left hand to his lips, kissing the back of it and steering us towards the road. Here’s to another eventful Christmas for us, and hopefully a happy one for you too!

  Merry Christmas!

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