Page 59 of Their Christmas Miracle

Elle

Elle paused in the act of tugging on her skirt. For some reason, she kept expecting to hear Blake’s voice, calling out to her, asking her to stay. Why, she didn’t know. He was obviously pissed about her finding his dirty magazines. About reading one of them. Who wouldn’t be?

She’d outstayed her welcome. The best thing — the only thing — she could do was leave. Go back to the hotel. Get warm, make a plan. Figure out what the hell she was going to do with her life. She didn’t even have a job. Hadn’t, for many years. She wouldn’t even know how to type up a resume if her life depended on it.

Well, her life did depend on it. So she’d better go and Google it the second she arrived at the hotel. And then she’d have to call her father. Hope he could talk his new wife into letting her stay at their place for a few days.

Maybe weeks.

All she needed was her car and enough fuel to reach him. How much would she need, for a five hour drive?

Elle shook her head, swaying her hips as she tried to force the tight, damp fabric of her skirt up her legs.

Blake would have to keep her car. She couldn’t pay for the repairs and still get to her father. There were busses, right? She could work out some kind of bus route, maybe get to her dad in a couple of—

“Everything okay in there?”

Elle started, and twisted half-around to stare at Blake’s shadowy shape.

“I… I have to go,” she said. “Home,” she added, in case he thought she’d wanted to use the toilet. “To the hotel.” Another clarification; home wasn’t home anymore. She, in fact, was homeless.

Tears pricked at her eyes. She forced them back with iron determination, straightening her shoulders and giving her skirt a final, hard tug.

It ripped. Loudly. Right along the side where the seam had been. Well, almost where the seam was.

Had it seriously been that tight on her? When in the hell had she gained so much weight?

“Uh… Elle?”

“Shit.” There was no getting the skirt back on. Almost no getting it off, she realized a few seconds later. “Shit, shit, shit.”

“Is everything—”

“Fine!” She took a breath and tried to temper her voice. “I’m fine. Just… I tore my damn skirt.” And then, under her breath, “Fuck.”

“Shit. Okay… Well, look, I have a pair of slacks you could borrow?”

Elle squeezed her eyes shut. Forced her mouth into a thin line. And tried desperately to tug her skirt off her again.

It remained resolutely tangled around her waist. Digging into her fat thighs. Squeezing out dimples of cellulite she hadn’t even noticed were there before. Again, her stupid body wanted to push out tears. Again, she forced them back.

Not here, not now.

“Let’s see.” Blake’s cheery voice, a few feet away, came to her. “This one should work.”

He handed it to her around the corner of the cube-glass wall. Elle took it, pressed her eyes closed, and murmured, “I need your help.”

“My help?” Blake’s dark shadow paused. “With what?”

“With this fuck—” She blew out a breath. “My skirt’s stuck. As in seriously, seriously stuck.” She yanked on it again, hoping against all hope that it would simply tear in two and render Blake’s assistance unnecessary.

It didn’t, of course.

Destiny had decided it had a bone to pick with Elle Georgia. Somewhere, some-fucking-how, Elle had pissed it off.

“Stuck?”

“It won’t come off, okay?” This, with probably a bit more snap than the poor man deserved. “At this point, a pair of scissors — even a gigantic hacksaw — would really come in handy.”

---