Page 6 of Fire and Ice
DeAndra scooted her chair back and stood. “You know you can’t keep anything from us.”
“Even if you try, we’ll find out.” Anneka laughed as she got up, too. “I’m going for the cinnamon rolls. They’re shouting my name.”
“Same here.” DeAndra headed for the stove. “Dibs on the center roll.”
Chelsea sang Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas as she put away her folded clothing in her large master bedroom, tucking stacks of sweaters and jeans into her bureau. Her sisters had headed to their homes a good two hours ago, and she had been catching up on laundry.
Her mind couldn’t seem to stay away from thoughts of Grady, no matter how hard she tried. The fact that the sexy firefighter had left his phone number for her sent thrills zinging inside her belly. She’d taken his number out of her purse and set it beside her cell phone. She intended to call him in a bit—when she gathered her courage.
She finished the holiday tune and moved on to Jingle Bell Rock. Strands of hair fell over her face as she leaned down and picked the pile of silky panties and bras off her bed. The stack was small, and she held it under one arm as she pushed her hair out of her face with her free hand.
The lavender scent in her lingerie drawer had faded, and the sachet needed to be replaced. She tucked the undergarments inside before turning to the vanity, where she kept a couple of extra sachets in sealed bags. She grabbed one, then moved aside her panties to place the sachet.
She stopped singing, and her hand froze as her gaze rested on a corner of the picture of George and herself from almost eight years ago. Five months after his death, she had moved herself and her siblings to King Creek to get away from the memories. They’d been here for seventeen months now. The picture had been in her drawer since the move, and she no longer gave it much thought. It was time to permanently put it away.
They had married when she was twenty-three, and he had helped her raise her brothers and sisters. But by the time she was twenty-nine, he was dead.
She drew out the picture and held it, her hands nearly shaking. Her heart thumped, and her stomach tightened.
Her husband’s face had been so kind. Most of the time, he was smiling, always teasing her, and cracking jokes.
However, he’d had a dark side that only Chelsea seemed to be aware of. His parents probably knew, but no one spoke of the fact that George had been an alcoholic. It had been a habit he had picked up in the army, when he was overseas and had lost friends to military conflicts. Fortunately, he wasn’t a mean drunk, but at times he would become aloof and spend time alone, lost in his thoughts. It would happen two or three times a week.
Many times, she had wondered what he was thinking about as he sat alone in his man cave. The room would remain dark during those nights, no lights or TV to brighten the place. Those were lonely times for her. She’d loved George—the good and the bad.
She hadn’t known he was an alcoholic until after they were married. Maybe she should have suspected something, but he had been careful to keep it from her and never drank in her presence while they were dating. She’d been angry that he hadn’t told her, and he had apologized, but it took time to forgive him for keeping something so big from her.
Amazingly enough, it hadn’t seemed to affect her siblings. They had just wondered why he spent so much time in that dark room, alone. They had loved George, and he’d been a good step-parent when he was with them.
He never drank at home and avoided being around the kids when he was drunk. She wondered if they had suspected something, but they never said anything about it, and grew up to be awesome young women and men.
Despite everything, Chelsea didn’t regret marrying him, she just wished things had been different in more than one way. A lot different.
Her eyes burned, but she held back tears. It had been six years since George’s death, but sometimes her chest ached from the thought of it. She took the picture and walked to her bed, staring at his features. Her heart in her throat, she slowly sat on the edge of the mattress and placed his picture in her lap. She closed her eyelids and dragged in a deep breath.
She would never forget that day. Something is wrong, had screamed inside her head just before her phone rang. Her heart had been in her throat when she went to press the answer button. When a man she didn’t know told her that George was dead, she had found herself sitting on the floor, tears flooding her eyes and rolling down her face, the phone in her lap.
Chelsea’s chest ached at the memory as she opened her eyes. After her husband died in an underground mining accident, she had told herself she would never again be involved with a man who worked in a dangerous profession. And here she was, considering dating a firefighter. Hell, she’d been more than considering it.
As she studied the picture, she traced one finger along the gilded frame. She had felt like a piece of her died when she’d heard a mineshaft had collapsed on George and his crew. But she had moved forward, and it was a part of her distant past.
However, if something happened to another man she loved—if she ever loved again—she didn’t know if she could take it.
Her throat felt raw as she looked away from the photograph. Her gaze rested on her cell phone on the vanity, next to the piece of paper with Grady’s name and phone number.
No, she didn’t want to take the chance of loving and losing another man due to his occupation. She stood, moved to the phone, and picked up the paper. She tore it into tiny pieces and threw them into the wastebasket beside her vanity.
She felt as if she’d been punched in the gut as she turned and walked out of the bedroom and carried George’s picture up to a trunk in the attic, where she kept old memories. Where it belonged.
3
After loading a large bag of Spot’s favorite dog food onto the bottom of the cart, Grady pushed the shopping cart to the breakfast aisle. Christmas music played over the loudspeakers, and the endcaps were filled with holiday cookies, boxes of stuffing, packages of gravy mix, canned pumpkin, and other foodstuffs.
’Tis the season. Thanksgiving had been last Thursday, so only a few weeks were left before Christmas Day, which had always been a huge event in his big family.
Grady went from one end of the breakfast aisle to the other. Along the way, he grabbed a bag of rolled oats, a container of granola, a package of breakfast bars, and a jar of malted milk powder.
At the end of the row, he picked out his favorites—Fruit Loops and Cap’n Crunch’s Peanut Butter Crunch. “Food of the gods,” he said as he tossed the boxes into the cart. “Dionysus would be proud.”
