Page 32 of All I Want For Christmas Is You

Her body felt heavy, and she couldn’t even get up. Instead, she sat there with a stupid expression. A lonely woman who’d gotten too attached to a total stranger.

Words darted around her mind like fish in an aquarium.

I like you.

Can I go to dinner with you and your daughter?

We should keep in touch.

But they were all futile and dumb, and there was just no point.

So, she said the only thing she could. “Goodbye, Beau.”

Chapter Six

Am I having a heart attack?

With the heat cranked high, Beau’s rental car was sweltering. His daughter was on her cell phone, filling her advisor in on the details of her lab results. But right then, with the windshield wipers matching the frantic rhythm of his heartbeat, he couldn’t hear anything over the roar of blood in his ears.

I almost kissed her.

I wanted to do a hell of a lot more than that.

He didn’t recognize himself. At all.

These feelings…they were so big, so overwhelming.

They made him frantic.

And I’m never frantic.

Beau was calm. He was the rational person in any crisis. When Walker had stopped breathing at eighteen months, his ex had screamed and panicked. He’d pulled to the side of the road, unbuckled his son, and tried to remove the mucous plug from his throat. When it didn’t budge, he’d used his pinky to swipe it out. The one thing the textbooks said not to do, his gut had told him would save his son’s life.

So, what had possessed him to try and kiss a woman he’d met yesterday? Who’d recently come out of a terrible divorce?

In the lobby of a hotel?

Thankfully, he hadn’t done it. Because honestly, if he’d finally gotten a taste of her, he didn’t think it would’ve stopped there.

After his ex left, he’d gone a little wild, trying to make up for what he’d missed the last seven years of his life. Sex had been transactional for Courtney. She’d barter it for a new car, a girls’ weekend in LA, or a bathroom remodel. He’d rather use his fist, so they’d stopped touching each other long before they’d split.

At first, he’d been voracious. But after a series of hookups, he realized he just wasn’t cut out for it. If he wasn’t into a woman, he became too conscious of the way she smelled, the texture of her hair, and the noises she made. It threw him out of the moment, forcing him to concentrate to reach the finish line.

He’d always assumed he wasn’t wired for romance. But then, he’d met Margot, and he’d been walloped with a crazy attraction. Just one look at her in the lobby that first morning had sent his pulse skyrocketing. Talking to her in the restaurant the night before had rendered him tongue-tied.

And now that he’d spent time with her, his emotions had reached a level he wasn’t comfortable with.

He was an engineer. He understood how things worked.

He didn’t understand this preoccupation with someone he’d never see again.

At the traffic light, he could either go left toward the lodge or right onto Main Street. When Jessa had called to say she was ready for dinner, she’d asked if Margot could join them. He’d been too rattled to ask. He’d needed to think. Figure out if it was a good idea.

But now, he knew it wasn’t.

This is my time with my daughter.

Checking his rearview mirrors, he got into the right lane.

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