Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 75289 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75289 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
She drills me on Nick, and apparently I’m incapable of keeping my mouth shut because I tell her all about my night, but all too soon, she has to go to get on with her busy Christmas.
My gaze sails around the house. There’s still so much that needs to be done, but I’m not feeling it today, so instead, I grab the keys to the truck and head out. If I don’t get to have the kind of Christmas I was hoping for, then the least I can do is try my best to help others enjoy theirs.
I pull up outside the soup kitchen, and as I make my way through the door, I find Bessy madly slaving over the hot stove, and she immediately puts me to work, getting the attached hall ready to seat the many friendly faces that will come through here today. I keep busy, not having even a moment to myself, but it’s exactly what I need.
It’s creeping close to the start of lunch when everything finally starts to calm down and Bessy invites me to eat with her before the mad rush, and despite everything, I can’t manage to numb the disappointment of not being able to spend my Christmas with Nick anymore. I politely decline and leave her to eat with the other volunteers and drive myself back home. Maybe I could break open a new bottle of wine and be the miserable loner Oxley jokingly accused me of being—a loser who drinks alone on Christmas day.
Just great. This must be a new low for me.
Taking the final turn onto my street, I notice a familiar red pickup parked out on the curb, and my brows furrow, watching as Nick stands at my door before giving up and turning back. Then hearing the sound of my truck putting down the street, he glances up, and the second his gaze locks with mine through the windshield, I realize we’re about to have it out in the middle of the street.
Turning into my driveway, I don’t even get a chance to cut the engine before he’s at my door, pulling it wide. “Where the hell have you been?” he demands. “It’s Christmas.”
“Yeah,” I mutter, reaching over to the passenger side and grabbing my handbag off the seat before jumping out and closing the door behind me. I storm toward the front door. “I’m well aware.”
Nick catches my elbow and spins me back to face him, his gaze demanding every bit of my attention. “Where the hell were you? I’ve been driving around town all fucking morning searching for you. I thought you said you wanted to do this? I took your fucking word for it. So imagine my surprise when I get back here and you’re nowhere to be found?”
My jaw drops, gaping at him as though he just told me he was capable of shoving his own fist up his ass only to have it wind its way up through his guts and out through his mouth again. “Your surprise?” I demand with a scoff. “What about my surprise when I woke up thinking it was going to be the first Christmas morning where I wouldn’t have to wake up alone, and the moment I opened my eyes, I found my bed empty. Do you have any idea what that felt like? I thought we were finally in a place where we could give ourselves a real chance at this, but apparently it was just about getting your dick wet for you. Or maybe it’s some bullshit way to get revenge on me for hurting you the way I did. I doubt it. I like to think I know you better than that, but I suppose six years is a very long time. People change all the time.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” he questions, stepping into me and forcing me to inch back a step. “Do you even hear yourself? Hell, have you heard a fucking word I’ve said to you the whole time you’ve been back?”
“I sure as fuck heard it when you said you wanted me to know how long I was planning on staying so you could gauge how much damage I was going to cause before jetting off and leaving you to clean up my mess.”
“That’s not what I . . .” he pauses and cringes. “Okay. I might have said that, but that wasn’t my finest hour, and we both know I was talking shit. I was trying to figure out how much time I had to make you realize this is your home.”
“Nick—”
“Where were you?” he asks again.
I let out a heavy sigh, not sure why it even matters at this point. “I was volunteering at the soup kitchen.”
He nods and inches closer again, taking my hand and pulling me against his chest. He brushes his fingers beneath my chin before lifting and forcing my gaze to his. “I left this morning to get you a decent coffee from the coffee house so you could wake up on Christmas with your favorite coffee and not have to drink that shit out of that ancient machine you have. The line was long. It seems everyone in Blushing had the same idea, but by the time I got back, you were gone,” he says, nodding toward a take-out coffee cup that’s been left on my porch. “I’m sorry you had to wake up alone on Christmas. I thought you’d sleep for longer considering the . . . workout I put you through last night, but I’m even more sorry that your first thought was to doubt my intentions for you because that means I haven’t tried nearly hard enough to show you just how badly I want this with you.”