Jacquie ’Alessandro - Heating up the Holidays

“I have to leave. It’s the only way I can feel any resolution.”

He let go of her, and she climbed out, grabbed her clothes and started getting dressed, still wet.

“So this meant nothing to you then?” he said. “You were just here for…closure?”

He spoke the last word as if it were something vile.

And maybe it was in this context, but she wasn’t going to feel guilty.

“That’s right,” she said, then swallowed hard. “It means nothing.”

WHY, LORELEI wondered for the next three days, did closure feel so damned awful? Wasn’t having sex with Ryan again supposed to bring her balance and a sense of peace with her past and all that?

It hadn’t given her anything but a sense of emptiness as she lay in bed alone every night. She buried herself in her work, but it didn’t help.

Ryan had tried to call her a couple of times, but she’d screened her calls and hadn’t answered, and he’d given up.

And then she’d felt bereft of him all over again.

She was sitting in the hospital cafeteria alone when her friend and colleague Maria Valdez sat down next to her, bearing a tray with two chocolate brownies on it.

“You look like you need one of these,” she said, offering one to Lorelei.

“Thanks.” Lorelei took it and broke off one corner, then put it in her mouth and chewed slowly. She could barely taste it.

“What’s going on with you? You’ve been moping around here like your dog died.”

She glanced over at Maria, at her warm brown eyes and half smile, and she shrugged.

“Hmm. Man trouble, huh?”

“Yep.”

“It’s the holidays. Seems to either make or break relationships.”

“I didn’t really even have a relationship. Just a…”

“A booty call?”

“No.” Lorelei laughed in spite of herself.

“Whoever it is, you’re sure looking like you want a relationship. Did he cheat on you? Lie to you? Steal your checkbook?”

“No, no and no,” Lorelei said. “He’s a good guy, I think. But I’ve been holding a grudge against him for something he did a long time ago, and I thought I’d finally evened the playing field-I thought I’d feel all empowered and victorious-but it just made me feel like shit instead.”

“Of course it did. You’re a woman. We can’t do anything blatantly mean without feeling bad about it.”

“I guess.”

“Men get revenge-women just get hurt.”

Lorelei swallowed another piece of brownie. She wasn’t sure she bought Maria’s sweeping generalization, but she thought of Kinsei. He was a man. He was the one who’d told her she’d feel better once she’d taken back her power from Ryan.

He’d never steered her wrong before, so what was going on now? Was it just that he’d given her advice meant for a man? She didn’t think so. Maybe she just needed to stop taking other people’s advice and make her own decisions.

“So now you’re all alone for the holidays?” Maria said. “You’re welcome to come join my family for Christmas Eve tomorrow. There’s a ton of us-it’ll be easy to get lost in the crowd.”

“I’m scheduled to work, but thank you anyway.”

“Whatever he did wrong, he’s not worth feeling bad about, you know?”

Lorelei took another bite of her brownie as her gaze landed on the necklace Maria wore, a thin gold chain with a silver and gold angel charm dangling from it.

The angel’s face, small as it was, managed to look so peaceful, so free of petty emotions.

“Maybe you should just forgive him,” Maria said. “You know, the spirit of the season and all…”

Right. Forgiveness. Harmony. Wasn’t that what Christmas was all about?

Lorelei frowned at the mist of fog outside the window, rolling in from the ocean. Did she have enough forgiveness in her heart?

Did Ryan, now, after what she’d done?

She knew she couldn’t sit here forever wondering. She had to go find out.

RYAN LAY on the couch in the darkened room across from the crackling fire, watching the colored Christmas lights on his ficus tree twinkle. The string of bulbs was his one nod to holiday cheer. But at nearly midnight on Christmas Eve, he was feeling a lot more wistful than cheerful. He’d turned down the various offers he’d received from friends to join them for holiday festivities, because after work today, he’d just felt like being alone.

Lorelei was still on his mind. But he understood she didn’t care to hear from him, and he supposed he understood why. Not everyone could forgive. And maybe he didn’t deserve to be forgiven.

But he wasn’t all that thrilled with the way she’d treated him, either. He’d allowed her into his heart…the same way she’d allowed him into hers when they were teenagers.

So, yeah, okay, perhaps she was right, he deserved to be alone and miserable tonight. But he couldn’t stop thinking of the way it had felt to be with Lorelei again, and the memories, so fresh in his mind, haunted him day and night.

Maybe he was just meant to be alone. He’d failed ever to find a woman who felt like his soul mate, and now, when he finally had found someone who seemed to fit his wildest fantasies, she hated him for the ass he used to be.

Such was life, he supposed.

His gaze landed on his guitar, and he sat up and grabbed it from the foot of the sofa. If nothing else, he could pour his wistful feelings into a new song. That was how he usually dealt with heartbreak, anyway.

He started a slow strumming, closed his eyes and let the words come to him.

He sang about sorry being such a sorry word, and forgiveness being so hard to reach, and…he just about made himself sick with how bad the impromptu song was, but he kept going, making up words as he went along, stopping, starting again, trying out the lines one way, and then another.

He was just about to give up his brooding musical efforts and go to bed, when he heard a knock at the door.

Ryan set aside the guitar and prepared to tell the neighbors that he was sorry the walls of his house were so thin, but when he opened the door, he found Lorelei, still wearing her hospital scrubs.

“Hi,” she said quietly.

“Hi.” His heart swelled in his chest, as if it was straining to get closer to her.

“I…I just wanted to stop by and say I’m sorry,” she said quietly.

“No, it’s okay. No more apologies.”

“I heard your song.”

“Oh. Well, then I do have to apologize for how bad it was.”

“You wrote that?”

“Just now. I mean, no, I didn’t really write it, I was just making it up as I went along.”

“What was it about?”

“You.”

She blinked, and he could see tears form in her eyes. One spilled out onto her cheek, and he wiped it away with his thumb.

“Want to hear a live performance?”

“Um…I just did. I heard everything. Sorry. I was eavesdropping, I guess.”

“It’s okay. All stuff I’d say aloud to you, if you’d listen.”

“You don’t need to.”

“I don’t?”

“It’s Christmas Eve. Aren’t we supposed to forgive on this of all holidays?”

Ryan tried not to feel too hopeful, but he failed. “I suppose so. Please come inside.”

She stepped into the living room, with its unintentionally shabby chic decor, surfboards hanging from the ceiling, fireplace glowing brightly, and the pathetic little tree with one sad string of lights.

“Welcome to my humble shack,” he said. “Can I get you something hot to drink?”

“Let’s skip the pleasantries, okay?” she said, staring at him in that intent, hyperintelligent way she had.

She looked tired, as if she’d been working a long shift, but she was still beautiful. Her hair was pulled back, and her face was free of makeup, making her look younger than she was.

Ryan got a lump in his throat, seeing her standing right there in his living room, that had only moments ago felt so cold and empty.

“I shouldn’t have done what I did,” she said, “and if you have time, I’ll explain why I did it. It has to do with an African medicine man, and fate, and teenage angst, and first love and other things I don’t quite understand.”

“I’ve got all night.”

She smiled then, and all the tension vanished. She was, at once, the beautiful, odd girl he’d always known. The one he wanted to know inside and out. The one he was pretty damn sure he was falling in love with.

“So do I,” she said, smiling still. “And I’ve got tomorrow, too, if you’re free.”

“I am,” he said, then he bent to kiss her softly on the lips.

“Can I tell you a secret?” she said against his mouth a moment later.

“Yes.”

“You were the first guy I ever loved.”

“I was?”

“Yep.”

“Wow…I’m honored.”

“Do you know what they say about first loves?”

“I’ve heard different stories,” Ryan said, slipping his arm around her and pulling her against him.

She felt warm and perfect.

“The only one I know to be true is that first love never really dies.”

He let her words sink in, and he smiled. He glanced up at the clock. It was 12:01 a.m. now. Christmas day.

“Merry Christmas,” he said, then kissed her again, holding her tightly, as he promised himself that this time, they’d get it right.

A village near Mombasa, Kenya,

Christmas Eve, One Year Later…

“WHY HAVE you not made her your bride yet?” Kinsei asked Ryan. “A woman like her will not wait around forever for a man.”

“You should tell her that,” Ryan said to the medicine man. “She doesn’t want to get married. Says it’s not a fair deal for women.”

The man threw back his head and laughed hard. Ryan had seen him do this several times since they’d arrived in the village the day before, and it never failed to make him smile. Really, everything about this village that had been Lorelei’s home made him smile. In spite of the relative poverty of this place populated by scrawny, beautiful children, elegant women, fat goats and squat little huts, the people he’d met seemed to possess something most Westerners lacked-true, unabashed, non-neurotic joy.