Rekindled: A Holiday Romance

by Victoria J. Best

  “You still want the tour?” he asked as we snuggled under the blanket.

  I shook my head. “Maybe later, I just got warm.”

  “Okay.” He rested his head against mine and we sat in comfortable silence.

  Several moments passed as we sat there, not saying a word. My mind was heavy with my reasons for coming back to town, and I felt the need to share a little bit of myself with him.

  “After I left, I was lost for a while, trying to figure out what to do with myself, where to live, how I was going to go to college without my family’s help.” I started to speak, quietly at first, unsure of myself but knowing he wanted to know things about me just as much as I wanted to know things about him.

  “What did you do?”

  I paused, collecting my emotions so as not to get upset. That time in my life had been very difficult and lonely. “For a few months, I lived in Pittsburgh in a hotel where I had to pay by the week. I worked at a fast food restaurant. All of my belongings were either packed into my car or taking over my room at the hotel. But I didn’t require much, and I ate for free at the restaurant most days, so I managed to save money. Once I had enough for travel expenses, I decided to get as far away from Pennsylvania as I could. I drove, eating and bathing in rest stops until I made it to Florida.”

  A tear slid down my cheek and I tried to brush it away before Garrett saw, but I wasn’t quick enough. He tilted my chin up so I could meet his eyes, using his thumb to gently brush away another tear from under my eye before it fell. Something in my chest clenched at the care with which he handled my sadness. Everything inside of me screamed to shut down, to turn away and not finish telling him the rest of my story. But I had to get it out.

  “I lived in the dumpiest apartment just outside of Tampa for a really long time while I took classes at the community college. It wasn’t easy. I was hungry a lot, but after five years, I got my degree in art with a specialty in graphic design.”

  “And you didn’t hear from your parents at all? They didn’t help you?” Garrett asked with amazement.

  I shook my head. “No. At first, I tried to call them a few times, asking how Shay was, asking them if I could come home, but my dad wouldn’t even talk to me, and my mom gave me the bare minimum. They were hurt, I understood that, I understand that now, but they left me out in the cold with nothing but my few belongings and a car. I had nothing.”

  “And yet here you are, ready to forgive them,” Garrett said, a new kind of amazement in his eyes.

  “My mom apologized, and now she’s sick. I don’t want to dwell on old wounds when she might not have that much time left. I regret that we missed so much time, but I also know that we have to move on. If only my dad would talk to me.” I bowed my head, tears welling up in my eyes.

  “What did you do that made them so angry?” Garrett asked me.

  I had been waiting for the question, and yet, I wasn’t ready to tell him. What would he think about my family if he knew?

  “I want to tell you, but . . .” I shook my head.

  “What are you afraid of?”

  Nothing. Everything.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Bianca, you can trust me.”

  I knew that and I did trust him. But what if he saw me differently after he knew the secret my family had been keeping for years?

  “It’s not my secret to share,” I finally said. It was a lame excuse.

  “Then why did you tell your sister and tear your family apart ten years ago?”

  “Because she had a right to know,” I snapped at him. I immediately regretted my tone. It wasn’t Garrett’s fault that Shay had never been told.

  “It’s all right. You don’t have to tell me. I just thought getting it off your chest would ease your burden a bit. I want to help you with it.”

  My mind was racing with the right thing to say or do. I wasn’t sure if I had made a mistake in telling Shay the way I had a long time ago, and I didn’t want to make that mistake again. The secret that had torn my family apart may have needed to be told, but was I ready for the rest of the town to find out? I couldn’t make that decision yet.

  Garrett didn’t press me. Instead, he reached towards the coffee table and picked up the TV remote, flipping it on. He clicked through the cable guide, searching for something to watch while I searched my brain for the right thing to do. He finally settled on a Christmas movie, setting the remote down and wrapping me in his arms. I settled against his chest, the stability and warmth of his embrace made me feel safe, for now, from my past demons and ones that still chased me. But would I be able to ignore them for much longer?

  11

  Garrett

  I pulled Bianca closer as she dozed in my arms on the couch. After the weird experience of the Christmas party, having her in my arms in my own home was a relief. For a little while I thought she was going to tell me she didn’t want to see me anymore. But now I knew why she was so reluctant. Not only did everyone freak her out by acting like we were an exclusive item after only one day, but she was used to being on her own, taking care of herself. That much was evident in what she had told me of what had happened when she left home. Resentment towards her parents built in my chest. How could a parent just tell their child to leave and give them nothing? They hadn’t checked in on her, they hadn’t even made sure that she was still alive.

  Anger burned as I watched her eyes flutter shut while she tried to fight sleep. She was exhausted, and if she wanted to doze on my couch while I got to hold her, I wasn’t going to complain. I thought pressing her to tell me about what had happened would help her to unload some of the anxiety that had been present in her eyes from the moment I ran into her outside of her parents’ house. But she wasn’t ready, and I had to give her time, just like with everything else.

  I sat for a little longer, my mind whirring and the Christmas movie droning softly in the background. My own eyes began to droop and I slowly drifted off, the last thought in my mind a question of how I would let Bianca go when it was time for her to leave.

  Something heavy lay against my chest. I started awake, unable to sit up all the way because someone was lying on top of me. The night before flooded back, and I relaxed. Bianca.

  “Good morning,” her voice was husky with sleep.

  I opened my eyes, looking down at where her head rested on my chest and she gazed up at me. Her light hazel eyes were clear, rested, and I breathed a silent sigh of relief that she was able to rest here. The anxiety that had been present from the beginning was still there, though, but so was something else I couldn’t identify.

  “Good morning,” I answered back. “What time is it?”

  She shrugged. “I have no idea. But it’s light out. We definitely slept on the couch all night. My neck will not thank me for it.”

  I rolled my own neck from side to side, feeling a slight crick on the right. She wasn’t wrong. But I wouldn’t have exchanged falling asleep with her in my arms for anything. I flipped the TV off, sitting up a bit. I had no idea where my phone was, but there was a clock on the wall above the entrance to the kitchen, so I swiveled on the couch to glance at it. It was just after seven.

  “It’s seven,” I said, pulling Bianca up for a kiss, morning breath be damned.

  “Ugh, it’s too early to be awake without coffee,” she said, pulling the throw blanket back up over herself as she sank back into the couch.

  “You’re in luck, I have a lot of coffee.” Reluctantly, I let her go and pushed up from the couch, stretching out every ache in my back. I wasn’t even thirty yet, but I definitely wasn’t in any shape to sleep all night on the couch.

  I padded towards the kitchen, which was just behind the living room and stretched all along the back of the house, connecting on the opposite side with the dining room and around to the foyer. Bianca sat up on the couch, watching me walk away, but she didn’t get up. I could tell she wasn’t a morning person. I pressed the button to turn the single-serve coffee maker on, filled the re
fillable pod with fresh coffee grounds, and retrieved two mugs from the cabinet above. Through the large sliding doors along the back of the kitchen which were flanked by even larger windows, I could see that we had gotten quite a nice coating of fresh snow, at least a few inches. I wondered what Bianca’s reaction would be to seeing snow on the ground after such a long time.

  The coffee maker stopped whirring, and after removing the full cup, I replaced it with the next, repeating the process of new coffee grounds in the refillable pod. While that cup filled, I emptied a stevia packet into the first cup, followed by a splash of heavy cream. Bianca had made us coffee the previous night when I was with her and I remembered how she liked her coffee. I walked back out to the living room. Bianca had managed to sit all the way up and had retrieved her phone from her purse. She was perusing emails when I handed her the mug.

  She blew across the creamy surface, steam rising with her breath, before she took a tentative sip. “Mmmm, how did you know how I took my coffee?”

  “You made coffee in your room, remember? I pay attention.”

  “Huh,” she said before taking another sip.

  She closed her eyes, savoring the hot liquid with a soft moan, the same way she had with the pizza we’d shared. My dick stirred and I shifted my feet to hide it. Watching Bianca in ecstasy was the most arousing sight I had ever seen, even if it was only from a sip of coffee.

  Before I tossed her back down on the couch and ripped my shirt from her lithe body, I turned and ambled back to the kitchen to retrieve my own cup of coffee. I splashed a little bit of cream in it, no sweetener, and rejoined Bianca on the couch. She was frowning at her phone when I sat down next to her.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, afraid she would say it was some sort of emergency in Florida that required her to go back sooner than she thought.

  “Just a client email.” She waved a hand. “He’s upset that I don’t have the proofs ready for the graphic I created for his business website. I told him about my family emergency, but apparently the man is heartless because he’s threatening to pull out of the contract if I don’t get it to him by the end of business today.” Stress made her voice pitch up an octave.

  “It’s Sunday,” I said, frowning.

  “He apparently doesn’t care. He’s based out of New York. They work differently out there. I work freelance, so my clients are all over the country. That’s why I was able to come up here for so long without worrying about work.”

  I nodded. She had talked a little about her business when we were at the B and B, but we mostly discussed our families, reminisced about how the town was when she used to live here, and talked about college. I didn’t know much about her graphic design business except that it was just over a year old.

  “How do you like freelance graphic design?” I asked her.

  She didn’t answer me, her eyes widening at something behind me. I turned around quickly, my eyes falling to what she was looking at. My red-and-black tabby cat, Fawn, had wandered into the room. A loud meow burst from her tiny body and Bianca laughed. She was angry with me because I hadn’t fed her yet.

  “Fawn, this is Bianca,” I said as Bianca jumped from the couch and crouched next to where Fawn was rubbing herself against the coffee table.

  “She’s so adorable! You didn’t tell me you had a cat.” She cooed to Fawn, rubbing her head as the traitorous cat wove herself around Bianca’s legs.

  “She’s a relatively new addition to the household. I found her two months ago, wandering down my driveway. She was very skinny. I think she got separated from her litter. I took her to the vet in town and besides a wicked case of ear mites they said she was healthy. I was going to take her to the shelter but she grew on me.” I gestured towards the cat, indicating that the feline had me wrapped around her little paws.

  Bianca laughed again, the high-pitched tinkle of it filling my house, and heart, with an emotion I wasn’t able to name. She picked up the still tiny kitten, tucking her up on her shoulder, while she ran her other hand over Fawn’s back.

  “I love cats. I was going to get one in Florida, but I haven’t had a chance. We had a little tabby at the farm when I was a kid. Her name was Tabby—original, I know. But my sister and I used to chase her and her kittens all around the farm. I miss having a pet.”

  A nostalgic, wistful look crossed her face before she plopped back down to the couch, the kitten still on her shoulder, and picked her coffee back up.

  “You really missed the farm when you went away, huh?” I asked.

  Bianca frowned for a second before she cleared her throat and looked down at her lap. Shit. I’d upset her.

  Suddenly, I felt like an asshole, “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I said that.”

  She looked up at me, her frown replaced with a look of determination. “No. You’re right. I was so lonely for so long in Florida. But I came to terms with what my family had done. But now that I’m back, it’s all come rushing back and I’m still trying to process everything.”

  “We should do something fun today,” I said, jumping up from the couch. “We have a few days until Christmas and I still don’t have a tree.”

  I didn’t tell her that I usually didn’t put up a tree in my own house because my brother and I spent Christmas Eve and Christmas day at my mom’s. She didn’t need to know that detail. What I wanted was to hear that laugh again and wipe the sadness and anxiety from her eyes.

  “I didn’t even notice,” she said, her eyes roaming around the room.

  “Well, I didn’t give you much of a chance when we came in last night,” I said with a smirk.

  Bianca blushed. “You’re right about that.”

  Heat filled her gaze, the same heat that was building in me. She set the cat back onto the floor and scooted closer to me.

  Tree shopping could wait a little longer.

  12

  Bianca

  “You didn’t tell me it snowed!” I exclaimed as I walked into Garrett’s large kitchen.

  The whole back wall of the room was like one big window looking out onto a large open expanse of yard filled with snow. Beyond the snow-filled yard was a dense forest of pine trees. We were going to eat a quick breakfast after we both showered, which ended up taking twenty minutes longer than it should have because we couldn’t keep our hands off of each other for the second time that morning. I was sore in all the right places from our three trysts over the last twenty-four hours, and I still couldn’t get enough of Garrett. He stood the sink, dressed in a pair of faded jeans and a black thermal shirt covered with an unbuttoned red-and-black flannel shirt. His hair was wet from the shower and his beard neatly trimmed. My stomach dipped as I looked at him, remembering how he’d left a red trail of irritated skin down my chest with that same beard when he’d fucked me against the shower wall moments earlier. My skin tingled under my sweater, and I gently stroked it through the fabric. A knowing look flashed across his eyes and a flush crept up my neck. He knew what I was thinking about.

  “We don’t have to go get a tree,” he said huskily.

  I shook my head. “No, you need a tree, and I need a little break. Just because you’re sexy as hell in your lumberjack outfit, doesn’t mean we aren’t leaving the house.”

  Garrett threw his head back as he laughed. “Okay. I’ll let you off the hook, for now.” The heat in his gaze was back.

  A shiver of pleasure made my stomach quake to my core. “Is that a threat?”

  “No, it’s a promise,” he growled.

  The shiver repeated its path.

  “Let’s eat before this day is wasted in bed,” I said with a chuckle.

  “Would that be terrible?”

  “No, but my lady bits need a bit of a rest.”

  He held up his hands in surrender, flipping the egg over in the frying pan before he sauntered to the fridge. I watched him pull out a carton of orange juice and loaf of bread. He set them on the island next to the toaster. I walked over, popped two pieces into the toaster and fil
led two awaiting glasses with orange juice. We went about getting breakfast ready in silence, with only a suggestive look here or a touch there. We each pulled out a stool and sat at the island, eating our breakfast while Garrett asked where I wanted to go to get a tree.

  “What about the Davis place? Do they still have their tree farm?” It had been so long, I wasn’t sure which businesses were still open.

  “You want to cut down a tree?” Garrett asked. “I thought we could go to the farm stand. They have pre-cut ones there.”

  I shook my head. “Nope. You can’t expect to dress like a lumberjack and not cut down your own tree. That’s not how this works.”

  Garrett laughed, standing to clean up our empty dishes. He took mine along with his, rinsing them in the sink before loading them into the dishwasher.

  “You can’t be serious. It’s freezing out there.”

  “Garrett Alexander, you built your whole house, but you don’t want to cut down a Christmas tree?” I shook my head again. “We’re doing it. When I was a kid, we always cut down our tree at the Davis’s Christmas Tree Farm.”

  He threw up his hands in surrender. “When you put it that way, how could we not do it?”

  I jumped up from the stool and clapped my hands. “You won’t be disappointed. But can we swing by the B and B first? I need to change my clothes and grab some warmer layers.”

  Garrett nodded, and with that we headed out to get him a Christmas tree. Before we left, he gathered his chainsaw and some bungee cords to hold the tree in his truck bed before putting on thick gloves, a hat, and thick work coat. The drive into town only took ten minutes, but in those ten minutes I regaled him with stories of my family and how we picked out Christmas trees every year. It was a process, but my sister and I loved running through the rows and rows of tall pines to choose the “perfect” one. He listened intently. Every so often, he shot me a sideways glance, something in his chocolate-colored eyes that I couldn’t identify. By the time we reached the B and B, I was sure he was done listening to me rambling on.