The Christmas Romance Wish (Love, Laughs & Mystery in Coco Key #5)

20. Alex

Alex

CHAPTER 20

Emmie, more frozen than when we were sledding earlier, stands completely motionless in front of me. It’s like the words of my marriage proposal were a pause button. Her expression reveals neither a smile nor a frown, completely neutral.

“Marry me?” I repeat.

Blinking a few times, she asks, “Like the app?”

“No, like nonfiction. Real life. Emmanuella, will you marry me?” I attempt, hoping the third time is the charm.

She opens and closes her mouth but words don’t come. Nerves explode inside. Have I read everything between us all wrong?

“I thought we could do it soon, like tomorrow, that way you’d have better associations with this time of year.”

Emmie sits down on the edge of the sofa. She studies her hands for a long moment as if whatever she wants to say would be more easily shared by typing, rather than speaking. “Alex, I fled Florida and broke free from the girl I was while growing up there. Then, coming here, I realized that I got caught up in a city lie, hoping that it would fix my loneliness. But there even with its huge population, just like when surrounded by my brothers, I felt the same loneliness. ”

Hope pulses along with the beat of my heart because it’s like she stops at a fork in the road. I can see both directions and where they lead, but which will she choose?

“I was trying to escape the pain of my past. Running away from Christmas. From myself.” Worry lines crease Emmie’s forehead, and I imagine they do mine as well.

“I didn’t truly fit in there, I just told myself I did. You’re a loner on a ranch, and I’m afraid I’m just repeating what I did before, trying to find a place for myself here.”

Shaking my head, I say, “I’m not a loner, Emmie. I have an entire community and you can be part of it too if you want to be.” I hitch half a smile. “And the cool thing is, you don’t have to fit in. As far as I’m concerned, you stick out. I like that about you. I love everything about you.”

“But we hardly know each other.” She slumps like something weighs heavily on her shoulders.

My chest rises with a deep breath. “I disagree. Just so you know, I don’t want you to change. I love you the way you are.”

“You’ve said yourself that sometimes you’re moody.”

“I’ve worked on that. I am still from time to time, but that’s just life. Not every day is Christmas,” I hesitate before continuing, “I was going to apologize for using that as an example, but I’m not going to. I’ve spent a lot of time, too much time, thinking about myself, my problems, and what I’ve been through—woe is me. Life gets better when we look outside ourselves and help other people do the same.”

“Wise words, but that’s another thing. You’re so much older than me. You’re practically a grumpa.” Emmie’s eyes shine and I can’t tell if she’s verging toward tears or laughter. I’m hoping for the latter.

I wrinkle my nose, not liking where this is going. “Grumpa, like grump and grandpa? Are you calling me an old man?”

It’s like she takes a trench shovel to my thoughts, digging up insecurities .

“No, but we do have an age difference.”

“Someday you’ll be my age.”

“I’ll always be younger,” Emmie says as if she’s used to people older than she is disappearing from her life.

“I won’t be a grumpa if you don’t act like a brat,” I say, lightly, jokingly, but I’m afraid she’s serious.

“Calling me names makes you a baby.”

“Did we just have our first fight?” I ask, not interested in continuing this line of the conversation whether it’s in jest or not.

“You’re good at it,” she says as if trying to stoke it anew.

“I’m a trained fighter. You are too. But maybe we can also be good at making up.”

She looks away. “Or perhaps we’re better as pen pals.”

“I’m not interested in being pen pals, Emmie.”

“What about the distance between us? I live in New York and you live here.”

“I thought you fell in love with Holidayle.” I’ve fought many battles. This one starts to feel like a losing effort.

“We can just go back to the way things were. Plus, it was confusing to me when you were flirty during the ride here from the airport, cooled off during the workshop?—”

“You thought my horse was my girlfriend.”

I hope to win a laugh. Instead, there’s a plea in Emmie’s eyes. “Then things sparked when I was stranded. What if you decide that?—?”

“I’m going to stop you right there. I was being immature about my emotions. Meeting you in person unleashed something in me. It’ll never disappear no matter how much you object or try to push me away. I’ve spent a lot of energy attempting to escape pain from the past.”

“Same.”

“You don’t feel like you have your own story. I was trying to escape mine until you came along. I’d like for us to tell one together. But if?— ”

This time, she cuts me off. “I just need time to think.”

An altogether different emotion than love seizes me. The rejection from when I was a kid pushes me down, out. I may as well be on the doorstep. Getting to my feet, I snap the blue velvet box shut. An exhale comes forcefully through my nose. “This was a bad idea. I’m sorry,” I say, breaking things off.

“You’re right.” Tears pierce Emmie’s eyes as she looks at me quickly and then is gone. She dashes up the stairs and is away. Disappeared. Pop smoke.

But I get what I deserve. Always have. Always will.

It’s no use trying to avoid the moodiness. To trick myself into being romantic.

I should have listened to my own advice and kept my hands to myself. They’re full as it is. I have the Wild Warriors, ranch chores, and the business of keeping my head squared away. That’s a full-time job.

Soon enough, the book will come out and the world will know half the truth about me. The other half becomes clear again. As if it wasn’t bad enough I learned my lack of worth as a kid. No one wants me. Not even the girl who said she loves me.

If she needs time to think, she can take as long as she wants. It’s over. I’m done. It’s better for me to carry on like the loner rancher she said I was.

If she can try to fit into a persona in the city, I can embody one here. I flop onto the sofa.

The words that wedge into my mind are lies and I know it, but I can’t stop them. Like reverse Christmas carols on repeat, they play over and over in my head. Telling me how worthless I am. How unlovable. How terrible and unwanted.

It’s a violent inward war I wage. Ugly. Bloody.

I’m a fighter. This is what I do. This is who I am.

To pretend otherwise is a waste of time.

The two stockings with Emmie’s and my names on them hang limply from the hearth. I’ve sat here so long, the fire has died.

Good. Better for it to be dark. Darker than night. As dark as the truth inside of me.

On my feet, I prepare to tear down the stockings and throw the tree and all the decorations into the remains of the fire. That’s where it all belongs.

These last days have been a trick. Maybe I am a grumpa. The real Grinch. I could just spend the rest of my days alone up here on the ranch and let the world with its Christmas festivals and ice skating and mistletoe carry on without me.

Good riddance.

I pace. Grumble. Through the window, the moonlight shines on the angel Emmie made in the snow. She’s an angel, despite not realizing it at times.

My thoughts rewind to the first time we talked on the phone. The emails and texts after that and how they slowly morphed into being flirty. How I was brave and told her everything about my time in the service so she could take my experiences, craft them into words, and create a narrative that could help guys like me know they’re not alone. That they never were. Aren’t now.

Flash forward to seeing her at the airport. How time stopped, planes hovered above us, suspended. Then her smile. The first time she laughed…

Connecting everything in my imagination about the way she looked, moved, and smelled, into a living, breathing, beautiful woman.

The reminder that it’s not about me barges into my thoughts.

These last days we’ve spent together, first trapped in the Jeep, then back here at home—the firelight in her eyes as she settled in and got comfortable—going to HQ, jumping out of the helo, the evening in Holidayle, and then everything since.

It has to mean something, doesn’t it?

The words I love you do, don’t they?

I’m a fighter, but I pledged to be peaceful.

What if I fight for Emmie?

I open the front door, the frigid air biting my skin as the clouds in my mind part. The breeze blows away the lies I listened to, and I think about how to win her back.

But is it too late?