Page 78 of The Christmas Romance Wish

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 wordsI love youdo, 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 myskin 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?

Emmie

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