Mistletoe Magic (Evergreen Lake: Under the Mistletoe)

Chapter 13

thirteen

HOLLY

I was an idiot.

I was humiliated.

I needed to get out of there. Maybe I could sneak down the stairs and disappear out the back.

“Fuck!” I swore as I realized my escape plan wouldn’t work. Not only was Chris holding Noelle hostage, but he’d completely disabled my car, too. Fine, he wasn’t holding her hostage and the car was my fault, but the asshole could’ve told me I was naked instead of standing there, arguing with me like nothing was out of the ordinary.

I squeezed a dollop of his body wash onto my palm and worked it into a lather. The steam-filled shower smelled like him, and it was a scent I’d never be tired of. Despite seeing me in my birthday suit and me now needing to find a hole to crawl into, there was something about Chris that made this place feel like home. Made him feel he was my home.

“Get it together, Holly,” I chastised myself.

Chris wasn’t my home. Hell, he wasn’t even my friend. He was just a guy who quite literally rescued me from the side of the road and brought me home offering me shelter from the storm. A storm that surely had to be easing soon.

I tilted my head back and hoped the hot water would wash away the silly thoughts running through my head. It was this damn cold. It had to be. I normally wasn’t the girl with a crush, especially not on someone I just met. That was ridiculous.

I finished my shower and stepped onto the bathmat. Wrapping a giant towel around me, I wiped the condensation from the mirror and stared at my reflection. I was a disaster. My nose was cherry red, and my eyes looked tired. I was tired. Bone weary, tired, if I was being honest even though I’d spent most of the day asleep. Then the guilt hit me. I’d spent most of the day asleep. Me. I didn’t get that luxury. Even when I was sick, I was still a mom and Noelle always came first. Always.

The guilt gnawed away at my stomach as I hurriedly got dressed and pulled my hair up in a messy top knot. I know I should’ve dried it, but with no power still and the desperate need to check on Noelle, I didn’t care. It wasn’t until I almost slid down the icy stairs that I even realized in my hurry to get to Noelle, I’d put my shoes on the wrong feet.

I shoved open the heavy door and stepped inside, the warmth instantly hitting me and wrapping around me like a soft, snuggly blanket. I could hear laughter and part of me felt like I was being left out, but it wasn’t their fault.

As I toed off my runners, I barked out a cough, clutching at my chest. This cold was hitting like a bitch, and she certainly packed a punch.

I opened the door to the office and froze. Chris and Noelle were sitting on the floor, both with their legs crossed playing cards. Noelle was giggling and looking completely at home with Chris, and not at all like she was missing me. It hurt, but at the same time, I was flooded with relief.

“Mom!” Noelle squealed when she saw me, throwing her cards down and rushing over, wrapping her arms around my waist and squeezing me tight.

“Hey, munchkin,” I replied, holding her close, “how was your day?”

Noelle let go and stepped back. “It was so much fun, Mom. Chris and I built a snowman and then we made snow angels and mine was so much better than his …”

“Hey!” Chris protested as he packed up the cards with a wide smile on his face.

“Then we had a snowball fight,” Noelle finished in a rush.

“A snowball fight? Did you win?” I asked, squatting down to her height and brushing her hair from her face.

“Yeah,” Noelle replied sarcastically. It almost sounded like, well duh, Mom, of course I won.

There was no doubt about it, she was definitely my daughter. A combination of sass and sweetness all rolled into one little adorable devil.

I coughed and thought a lung was going to come up.

“That doesn’t sound good,” Chris commented, pushing to his feet.

“It doesn’t feel all that great either,” I answered honestly.

Chris walked over to his desk and set the cards aside before grabbing me a bottle of water and the Nyquil. “Here. Hopefully this will help,” he offered.

“Thanks,” I accepted as he brushed past and out the door, leaving Noelle and me alone.

I took the medicine and gulped down the water before putting the cap back on the bottle. Before I sat it back on the desk, I ripped the label down the middle.

“Mom, why did you rip it?” Noelle asked.

“So I know which one’s mine. I don’t want you to drink out of my bottle and get sick,” I explained.

“Oh. ”

“Why don't we go snuggle under the covers and you can tell me about your day?” I suggested, and Noelle instantly tugged on my hand.

Once we were snuggled down, the blankets tucked in tight, Noelle started blabbering about her day. Five minutes later, I knew every single detail, even if she did get derailed and go off track a few times. Even though my head throbbed and I felt like I’d swallowed a handful of razor blades, I couldn’t stop smiling. Noelle had had a great day and that was all that mattered. And I had Chris to thank for that. He’d made it a great day. He’d given her that and I just had to add it to the list of all the things I needed to repay this man for.

Noelle fell quiet with her head in my lap. I adjusted the blanket around her as I trailed my fingers through her hair. She was growing up so quickly, soon she wouldn’t want me around so I needed to make the most of the time I had. If only this terrible cold would go away.

I sniffed and wriggled my toes in my thick socks. It seemed no matter what I did, I couldn’t keep my feet warm. They were cold to the point of stinging.

“Mom?” Noelle asked, breaking the silence.

“Yeah, princess?”

“Why don’t I have a dad to play in the snow with me?”

Noelle’s words felt like a sucker punch to the stomach. I knew this conversation was coming at some point, but I hadn’t been expecting it now. Not today.

I swallowed deeply, buying time as I measured my words.

“Sweetheart, your dad would’ve loved to play in the snow with you. He would have built you a snowman, helped drag you up the hill on your sled, and laid down and made snow angels with you until your lips turned blue and I made you both come inside.”

“Then why won’t he? ”

“Sweetheart …” My heart felt like it was physically breaking all over again. The pain was palpable.

“If he wanted to play with me, why did he go away?”

The innocence of children. It broke my heart and made me feel unimaginable pain. I’d always tried to shield Noelle from the truth about Nick, but I’d always known this time would come. But I thought I’d have time to plan for it. Think about it. Decide how much I needed to tell her. Decide how much she needed to know.

“Oh, Noelle,” I cried, kissing the top of her head and breathing in her scent. “Your daddy didn’t want to leave you. He loved you so much,” I attempted to assure her.

“But he’s gone?”

“He is,” I clarified, gulping down the lump in my throat. “Your dad had a very important job. He was one of the men who went to work to keep us safe.”

Images of Nick in his uniform popped into my head and I couldn’t blink them away. I didn’t want to. He was so handsome. He loved his daughter, I never doubted that for a second, but he was his job. It was what he was born to do. Who he was born to be. Even though I worried every time he walked out the door, I couldn’t ask him to give it up. Not even when I was pregnant with Noelle could I ask him to do that.

I felt the tears welling in my eyes but wished them away. Our love story didn’t have a happy ending. It had an ending, but it was far from happy. It was one that left me shallow, lifeless, and wallowing for days after a trip down memory lane.

Nick had come home. He’d come back to me. And two days after he knocked on my door, he’d driven us back to the lake, back to our spot and it was like we were teenagers again. It was like time and distance and loneliness had never happened. But I wasn’t the same young, naive girl anymore. I’d grown up. I’d had to. I’d had to fight to survive when my heart packed his bags and enlisted in the army. I never once resented him for choosing the life he did, I resented him for leaving me, though. It was a pain I’d never recover from, and every time he walked out the door for another deployment, it was one that I relived. It was like pouring salt into the open wound, leaving me desperate and despondent for days.

Instead of falling into the back seat and making out like horny teenagers, Nick had asked me to take a walk with him. I remember everything about that moment like I was standing on the sidelines watching it happen. He laced his fingers with mine as we walked along the well-trodden path. It was a beautiful fall day. The leaves had turned and there was a chill in the air, but there was nowhere else I wanted to be. When I shivered, Nick peeled off his jacket and draped it over my shoulders.

We rounded the corner and Nick froze. Stepping back, I didn’t know what he was doing until he dropped to one knee and reached for my hand. It was the closest I’d ever come to my heart exploding. He didn’t need words. I was nodding even before he opened his mouth. I wanted nothing more than to be his wife. I wanted to be the one he came home for. The one whose picture he carried in his wallet. The one he thought about when he looked up at the stars at night. With Nick, I wanted it all.

We were married three weeks later.

I didn’t want to wait. Nick tried to persuade me to wait so he could give me the wedding of my dreams, but I didn’t need all that. I just needed him.

By the time he was packing his bags and going out on another deployment, everything had changed. I was a wife. He’d moved me into accommodation near the other army wives so I had people around me who understood. He wanted me to have a support system in case … I refused to listen to him when he started talking like that. I didn’t want to even think about it. He was coming home to me. We had plans. He didn’t have a choice. We were going to be a family.

We had three years. Three short years. Three years of pure happiness. Sure, I spent most of my nights alone, eating frozen meals for one, watching Friends reruns, and reading some of the dirtiest books around. But when Nick came home, it made those lonely nights a distant memory. And we spent every minute he was home making memories of our own. Even if it was only cozy date nights cuddled on the couch or dinners out. It didn’t matter to me what we were doing as long as we were doing it together.

Nick brought up having kids, and I resisted. Not because I didn’t want them, I did. Being a school teacher, I saw kids grow every day and yearned for my own, but I wasn’t sure I was ready to do it alone. Being a single mom was hard. I wasn’t sure I was strong enough to keep going without Nick and raise our child.

“We’re not getting any younger, Holly,” Nick reminded me.

It was a week before Christmas. Nick had been home for three days and I had him for another ten before he boarded a plane and left again.

“I know that, Nick,” I’d spat back at him.

I didn’t want to fight, but I wouldn’t be railroaded into doing this. It was too big for a snap decision. This was life-changing. And it was my life that would be the one changing.

“I think it will be good for us. Imagine having a beautiful baby girl with your smile,” he placated as he took the cup from my hands and set it aside before surrounding them with his own massive paws.

I softened.

I always did when he looked at me like that.

Nick was like a puppy. All adorable and wide-eyed and he knew exactly how to use it to his advantage to get what he wanted .

The next day we threw away my birth control.

Two months later, two pink lines popped up on a pregnancy test and Noelle was suddenly my life.

Nick made it home for her birth. Barely.

I was eight hours into a fourteen-hour labor when he fell through the door in his crumpled army fatigues, looking like he needed a shower, a week of sleep, and a hot meal. But I didn’t care. In that moment, everything was his fault, and if he had to suck it up and go without, then so be it..

Noelle arrived, a screaming bundle of joy, and the moment the nurse laid her in my arms I knew that nothing else mattered. She was my world. From that moment on, everything I did, everything I was, it all became irrelevant. I had no doubt there’d be times when I was tired or scared or at my wit’s end not knowing what to do, but I’d figure it out. I had to. Noelle was depending on me, and I wouldn’t let her down.

It was a week before Noelle’s first birthday when a knock at my door changed my life.

Nick was due home in a few days, and I couldn’t wait to see him. Noelle had grown up so much. She was walking now or more like stumbling about, and babbled nonstop. I hated that he was missing it all, but happy he was going to be able to make it home for her birthday. I wasn’t sure why it mattered so much that he was there, it just did.

I’ll never forget the moment.

Trying to balance a wiggling toddler on my hip, I answered the door. The moment my eyes fell on a serious-looking gentleman in full uniform, I knew. My stomach dropped, I was blinded by tears and my heart shattered. Nick was gone. I knew it without a word.

The man introduced himself, apologized, and gave me some vague explanation of what happened but I barely heard a word. Disbelief and heartbreak overwhelmed me. It was Noelle who quite literally kicked me out of the stupor I was spiraling in. She’d wriggled the wrong way and kicked me right in the boob.

I remember setting her on the ground and watching as she crawled away. I thanked the guy at the door, dismissed his offers of assistance, and pushed it closed. I closed it on the man on the other side, telling me half my heart had stopped beating, and I closed it on that chapter of my life. Of our lives. Noelle and I had been living on our own most of the time and we made do. We were surviving. Day to day, we put one foot in front of the other, counting down the hours until Nick came home but that had to change. He wasn’t coming home. Not today. Not next week. Not ever.

“Did he keep us safe?” Noelle asked, forcing me back to the here and now.

“He did.”

“But he still left me,” Noelle said sadly, and my heart hurt for her. “Grace at school said I didn’t have a dad because I was bad.”

Kids could be cruel. “That’s not true. Sweetheart, your dad loved you so much, and he was coming home to you, but he had an accident. That’s why he’s gone,” I offered.

“An accident? Did he fall over?”

“Kind of. He was in a car, and it had an accident.”

“Oh.”

I watched as my words sank in and hurt her. I wished today, of all days, this hadn’t come up, but I wasn’t surprised it had. Other than my father, a man who would rather pay someone to play in the snow with Noelle than actually do it himself, Noelle had grown up with no male role models in her life. I’d never dated. Not once since Nick. I’d never wanted to. Never even really considered it as an option, and maybe that was my mistake.

I adjusted Noelle in my arms so she was facing me. Cupping her cheeks in my hands I needed her to hear what I was saying. Even if she was only six years old, I needed her to know, to understand.

“Sweetheart, your dad loved you so much. If he could’ve been here with you playing in the snow, he would’ve. He would’ve helped you wrap the presents. He would’ve carried the tree. He would’ve even snuck you chocolates and candy before dinner just to see you smile.”

“Like Chris did?” Noelle replied, and I froze.

I couldn’t tell her she was wrong. She was absolutely right. Chris was a stranger who rescued us from the side of the road, but he was so much more than that. To my little girl, my angel who’d had her own father stolen from her too early, Chris had given her everything she never knew she wanted. A dad for Christmas.