Page 5 of Holly, Jolly, and Oh So Naughty

Last year, I would have said I was well on my way to emotionally detaching from my patients.

Then, my father passed suddenly three months ago, and everything felt raw. Like I’d been skinned alive and left as just this raw, painful nerve absorbing the agony of everyone around me.

Returning to my desk, I sit down heavily in my chair and sigh as a familiar wave of grief rushes through me like a burst of static. I may not have learned to emotionally detach like my father, but I certainly grasped his idea of running away.

My childhood was filled with verbal fights between my parents that would only be resolved by my father disappearing to some out-of-state work or a conference. Then he would return with flowers and an apology, and it would be peaceful until the next fight.

I fled.

My father’s death was a wake-up call to the smothering life I found myself trapped in. From the day I was born, my mother had everything planned out for me, from my schooling to my career path and then my fiancée.

Ex-fiancée.

I left the ring and an apology note on her bedside table three months ago and never looked back because losing my father highlighted one very hidden truth in my heart.

I didn’t love my fiancée because I was in love with another. I always had been, and there simply wasn’t enough space in my heart for anyone else.

Leaning forward, all it takes are a few key taps to bring up the website for this town’s famous bakery, theSweet Noel, run by the gorgeous Lily Thompson.

The woman who has my heart.

Maybe it’s the grief talking. Maybe I’m crazy.

Packing up and ditching my life within one night to come halfway across the country to a state I’ve never been in, just for a glimpse of the woman I’ve been in love with for seven years.

A woman I was forced to forget due to family obligations.

In my few months in Silver Hills, I’ve expertly avoided her other than a few walks past her bakery seeking just a glimpse. I’m surely nothing more than a distant memory to her, but right now, with my life a mess and my heart broken, she’s the medicine I need.

Bringing my expertise to a town like this has the added benefit of making me feel like I can still do good things.

I know theSweet Noelwebsite by heart and yet I still take my time scrolling through the pages until I reach the ‘About Us’ section. Lily’s smiling face shines above an award for best confectionary three years running. The sight of her makes my heart swell and I?—

“James, why on earth is Mrs. Hill sobbing her heart out in the staff room?”

My door bursts open and my boss, Margret, stands in the doorway with her arms crossed and her small, rectangular glasses perched on the tip of her nose.

I quickly close theSweet Noelpage and heat warms my face and neck as if I’ve just been caught looking at something naughty, like a teenager caught by their parents.

“Uhm… I gave her some unexpected good news. Not even good news, just hopeful news, I think, and it hit her harder than she expected. Than either of us expected.” I shift in my seat, still flushed.

“Hmm. Well, that had better be all. This place had a nice reputation before you started here.”

“Has your reputation suffered?”

“No,” Margret replies stiffly, “but we don’t need people seeing a stream of sobbing women leaving your office.”

“Well…” I snort softly. “When you put it like that…”

“And another thing.” Margret strides forward and rounds my desk. When her eyes flit to my computer screen, I’m infinitely grateful I closed that window. “You need to do something about this.”

“About what?” I scan her quickly and my eyes lock onto the phone in her hand.

“About this!” She thrusts the device toward me, and my heart sinks.

A few button presses and there’s a flood of missed calls and voicemails from two numbers I instantly recognize. My mother and my ex-fiancée.

“Your mom and your fiancée?—”

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