Page 4 of Christmas Wish

“I’m Sheriff Charles Frost, by the way,” he said, thrusting out his hands.

Holly took his hand in her soft grip. “Hello, sheriff,” she uttered. Her voice dripped with seduction.

Or maybe I am hallucinating.Charles wanted to leave, but his feet were held tight on the floor. He didn’t want to leave her; there was so much he wanted to know about her.

Chapter Three

Holly

Sheriff Frost captivated her. He was a hulky, gorgeous man who also seemed unafraid of showing his soft side. Holly hadn’t expected such a man to be close friends with her grandmother, but he seemed to know quite a lot about the bed and breakfast, and she was grateful for his help.

As Charles pulled her luggage into the dusty building, she couldn’t keep her eyes off of him. Holly loved the way his arm muscles rippled as he worked. He had pulled off the Stetson hat he wore earlier, so his glossy dark hair shook around. She wanted to run her fingers through its thickness.

“Where would you like me to put this, Holly?” Charles asked, breaking her reverie.

Holly looked around. Thick dust coated the walls; intricately woven spider webs dangled from the ceilings. The curtains were heavy with dirt as well. Dust swirled in the air, filling her nostrils. She coughed intermittently. “I don’t know which room to take,” she confessed.

Pity filled Charles’ eyes. They were standing near the stairs. “Would you like to take your grandmother’s room? It was the best room in the building, and she would’ve absolutely loved for you to take it,” he suggested.

While Holly appreciated his help, she couldn't imagine living in a dead woman's bedroom. Just thinking about it gave her chills. “No, I don’t think I’m ready to stay there,” she replied.

Nodding, Charles grabbed her hands and led her upstairs. “Come, I want to show you something.”

Holly was too focused on the warmth of his palms to grasp what he was saying. They walked down the short, narrow, carpeted hallway until they stopped at a room marked Holly, written in pink hologram. Charles fiddled with the keyhole until the door opened.

Holly stepped in gingerly, her heart pounding fast. The room was painted pink and white and looked relatively clean. A baby cot lay on the far-right corner of the room. Beautiful blue-and-pink drapes covered the windows. It was the princess room she had always dreamed of as a child. Tears filled Holly’s eyes as she studied the baby pictures on the walls.

“I helped your grandmother redecorate this room every few years,” Charles disclosed. “She had high hopes of seeing you before she died. You know, her death was sudden and quite shocking. As it turned out, all the years of breaking her back, working hard for the business, really did break her," he said slowly.

Charles joined her near the wall where she was still studying the pictures. In one of them, Holly was barely three months old. Her grandmother held her closely, peering into the camera intently with a small smile that tugged at the corners of her mouth. Standing there, Holly realized one thing – her grandmother loved her. Suddenly, she started resenting her mother for keeping her away from this love.

“She was a wonderful woman, your grandmother,” the sheriff continued. “She never stopped talking about you, Holly. She missed you terribly and just wanted one last moment with you, but your mother was nowhere to be found. I tried to search for you a few years ago, but no matter how hard I tried, your mother was always one step ahead of me."

Holly wanted to sob bitterly, but she restrained her emotions. She didn't want to embarrass herself in front of this beautiful man.

"Mrs. Dalenger kept this room for you. Maybe you can use it," he said.

Holly nodded, sniffling discreetly. He watched her with kind, sympathetic eyes. When she met them, she felt lost in the thick swirls of his eyes. After a while, Charles dropped his gaze and turned towards the door.

“Well, I’ll leave you to it. Would you mind if I dropped by later to see how you are doing and maybe take you around town?” he asked, leaning against the doorframe.

This man was trouble, Holly could sense it, but she found herself nodding and smiling at him. He was the kind of trouble she wanted to get caught up in.

Chapter Four

Charles

The office was deathly quiet when Charles finally reached the station. His secretary and receptionist, Mrs. Wallace, had taken a leave of absence to begin her preparations for the coming festival, so he was left alone to do the paperwork. Unfortunately, Charles couldn’t focus as his mind returned to the woman he left at Mrs. Dalenger’s B&B.

Holly’s sudden appearance in Mistletoe was both a welcome event and a cause for alarm. The feelings she roused inside Charles terrified him. He couldn’t remember the last time he was so drawn to a woman since his last girlfriend broke up with him.

Back then, his job with NYPD had consumed him completely. Lisa begged for his attention, pleaded for some time alone with the man she loved, but he couldn’t be that man for her. Charles’ favorite place in the world was his corner office, working on taking down criminals and chasing evil men on the streets of New York. Lisa had to leave him before he realized how horribly wrong he had been.

When a case was botched and nearly cost him his life, Charles knew that it was time to return home. Just then, the old sheriff was at a retirement age, and there just wasn’t anyone to replace him, so he decided to step in and relieve him of his duties.

The quietness of the town life calmed Charles and helped him prioritize things correctly. For years, he avoided Mistletoe since his parents died there. His father had been the town’s sheriff once. It had always been his dream to clean up crime in their town as much as he could. But his life had only just begun to come together again after three years. Mostly, he was just afraid of falling in love again. He was afraid of being abandoned as Lisa did or never fully loving someone the way she wanted and deserved.

Something told Charles that Holly was nothing like Lisa. She wouldn’t give him second chances like his ex; she was brittle and fragile like a flower. She would break from any little hurt. Out of respect for her late grandmother, Charles knew that he had to stay away from Holly and suppress all the feelings that had begun to brew inside him. It was a reasonable thing to do.

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