Unforgettable Christmas - Gifts of Love (The Unforgettables Book 3)

by Mimi Barbour

  “You went to college?”

  “Before hair design. I was in the program where you dual enroll the last two years of high school, if your grades are good enough? I had my AA along with my high school diploma. Then I chose to be a hair stylist instead.”

  “Sexy, and talented and educated.” Fascinating to him, all of her layers.

  She laughed gently. “I had a plan.”

  “You don’t have that plan anymore? What happened, Crysta?”

  “Life changes.” The waiter swooped in with their dinners, breaking up the conversation.

  Halfway through the meal, she pushed back from the table and put her hand over her stomach. “Delicious.”

  “Do you want a bite of this?” He gestured to his white cheese, pasta, and chicken breast.

  “No thanks. I’ve never been an Alfredo fan.”

  “And all this time I thought you were the perfect woman,” he teased.

  She half-smiled. “You’re welcome to the rest of my ravioli.”

  “Maybe a bite.” He reached across the table and speared a square, popping it in his mouth to chew, his eyes on hers. Her eyes on his mouth. He liked that.

  Whatever was going on with her, she wasn’t immune to him.

  “I don’t mean to be cryptic. As much as I like you,” she said with a faint blush of color along her cheeks, “Now isn’t a good time for me to start a, er, what did you call it? Special friendship?”

  He bowed his head, remembering Red’s Bar and his insensitive solution to their long-distance obstacle. “I was an ass.”

  “You were being honest.”

  “I was being selfish.”

  Her brows arched with surprise. “Maybe.”

  He leaned over his mostly empty plate and took a sip of wine. “Why is now not a good time?”

  “I’m starting a new business, from scratch. I’ll need to be hands-on for quite a while. It’s just not a good time for me right now. Having to consider one more thing, it’s just too much. Overwhelming.”

  He didn’t like being one more thing. A duty. But what had he done to prove himself worthy of being a good friend, let alone more?

  “I can give you more time,” he said, wanting a crumb from her that she’d be willing to try.

  “It’s not that.”

  He sat back as the waiter cleared his plate too, nodding at him to see if he was ready for the birthday dessert and singing with all the staff. He inclined his head in agreement.

  Dillon’s reward was watching her laugh with genuine surprise when they brought out an entire cake with one multi-flamed skull candle in the center, singing happy birthday to her.

  His heart thumped erratically as she blew out the candle and automatically reached for his hand. “Thank you.”

  “It was my pleasure,” he said, and meant it. Making her happy filled something within him that he hadn’t realized was empty.

  ***

  Crysta tried not to stare at Dillon’s so-handsome face, etched in shadow and gold across the candle light. He’d been a perfect gentleman, not pressing too much for answers even though she sensed his frustration.

  He’d let it go around the time the salad had come, which had allowed them to have a wonderful meal and conversation that she would replay later in her head before falling asleep.

  He did care about her, she saw that. But he didn’t know the whole truth.

  If she told him now, he would be trapped and that wasn’t right. This dinner had just shown her how wonderful he was, how thoughtful.

  Another layer to cover the wound in her heart. She wanted him, so much, to keep their fingers entwined, to declare his love, to say that he’d changed his mind about having a family.

  She closed her eyes and made a wish as she blew out the candle. A happy family of her own someday, though it would probably be with Lara as she and her best friend guided this new life growing inside her through happy times and sad.

  Crysta could see the allure in trying to protect a child from sadness, but maybe it was a lesson best learned young. To take the grim with the bright. Hope had been hard fought for and not always won in her youth—or now, even, come to think of it.

  But hope somehow managed to find a way to flicker, alive.

  She ate a small piece of cake, stuffed to the brim. How had she managed her whole life not to love chocolate?

  Dillon rose from his seat—they were in a compact area, a romantic table for two—so he was right there next to her, wiping his thumb across her lower lip and bringing the chocolate to his own mouth.

  Desire, hot, heavy, coursed through her. He dropped to his knees before her and buried his hands in the hair at her nape, bringing her mouth to his for a possessive kiss.

  She leaned forward, so they were forehead to forehead, and she wrapped her arms around his shoulders, breathing deeply. His aftershave, and in the heat of his skin, the essence of Dillon, the man.

  “Take me back to your house,” he said urgently.

  “No.” She came to her senses very quickly. The bassinet in the back corner of the studio.

  “Why not? God, I want you!” He skimmed his hand around the fullness of her breast and she moaned. “You want me.”

  Oh, yes, she did.

  She swallowed and forced herself to straighten in her seat. To push away from his broad chest. This had been a terrible idea because now she cared even more than she should and telling him goodbye, forever goodbye, hurt like hell.

  Damn Lara.

  Damn me.

  He sank back on his heels, his eyes, jade and intense, studied her face with concern. “You tell me why I need to let you go—one good reason, and I won’t come back again. Because right now, I can feel you.” He tapped his heart.

  “I’m not denying that.” She sounded hoarse.

  She projected into the future, imagining them five years from now—he would hate her for trapping him. Despise and blame the child they’d created for keeping him from his travels—a fast-track on the promotion line.

  She couldn’t let him ruin his life…he’d made choices to go another direction.

  It killed her to lie to him, but that was all she could think of—what could she say that would make him leave her, and not return?

  Tears welled hotly in her eyes but she blinked them back and swallowed them down her aching throat.

  “I can’t see you again. Yes, I care for you. But I’m going to marry another…he’s very wealthy.” Her voice cracked at the falsehood.

  Dillon’s clear, open gaze clouded with pain.

  “You are marrying someone for money? That doesn’t sound like you, Crysta. Why?”

  “That doesn’t matter.” She forced her tones to be ice cold. “I shouldn’t have come to dinner but I promised Lara that I would tell you…” Something completely different.

  Dillon stood, raw emotion pouring off of him. “Why?”

  “So that you could move on.” She tightened her jaw. “You were never going to be serious, Dillon, and so what difference does it make in the end?”

  His shock, his pain, crashed through her, slicing her own emotions open and her heart begged her to tell him the truth. But, how could she? He would hate her, eventually. It was better to end it now. Forever.

  For good.

  He took his wallet from his suit pocket and dropped a couple hundred on the table. “This should cover dinner. The limo can take you home. You’ll understand if I don’t stay?”

  Dillon, head high, strode out of the restaurant, and despite the blur of tears in her eyes, she couldn’t look away.

  He had no idea that while shoving him away for his own good, she’d managed to hurt herself even worse.

  Sobbing quietly as the waiters stood back, uncertain, she cried into her napkin until her tears had dried.

  “Will you be okay?” the waiter asked with concern. He gestured to the bills on the table. “This is too much.”

  “Keep it,” she said, slowly getting to her feet.

  She walked throu
gh the restaurant, certain that everybody’s gaze was on her as she followed Dillon’s footsteps. Agony unlike anything she’d ever experienced, and she’d had more than her fair share of pain, throbbed through her.

  Crysta reached the curb. The limo driver got out of the car and opened the door, not showing any surprise that she was alone.

  Alone. Except for the child within her.

  A stab of true pain brought her to her knees on the sidewalk and she cried out, her world going black.

  Chapter Eight

  Crysta woke up in the back of an ambulance, struggling against someone holding her wrists as they tried to subdue her.

  Fear unlike anything she’d ever experienced, fear for another, not herself, forced her to cry out, “I’m pregnant, be careful. Please.”

  She’d given up and lost so much already by choosing to be a mother that the idea of losing this child now knocked all breath from her lungs. What would she do, if she miscarried? I’m sorry, baby. Sorry.

  Crysta struggled, tears leaking down the sides of her face into her ears.

  “It’s okay,” the paramedic intoned in a soothing voice. “Just calm down, and we’ll get you to the hospital.”

  “What happened? I don’t need the hospital.” Home, to her bed, her sanctuary.

  “You fainted on the sidewalk,” the paramedic explained. “The waiter called 911.”

  Fainted? She used to faint, as a kid, when things got too scary. Too real. The fake blood, vampires, and paranormal held no fear factor for her—she’d dealt with real monsters: men, and women who had been in charge of her safety.

  This was not her first ambulance ride. How old had she been the last time? Twelve?

  “What’s your name?” The paramedic, a young Hispanic about thirty, asked. He had kind brown eyes, longish brown hair.

  “Crysta Jones.”

  “Can we call your husband for you?”

  “No husband.”

  His tone warmed. “How far along are you?”

  “Six months.” She tugged her hand down to her barely rounded stomach. “I felt a pain. Sharp. Is everything okay?”

  “We’ll get you checked in and find out what’s going on.”

  How could this poor guy know if she was okay? She’d asked a stupid question. Fear overtook any emotional pain over Dillon, but oh, how she wanted him by her side right now. Someone to stand between her and the world.

  She looked around. “Do you have my purse?” She thought back to outside the restaurant. The lie she’d told for Dillon’s sake. “I’d like to call my friend, Lara.”

  “I put it by your feet,” he said. “We are pulling into the ER now. You take care, okay? The limo driver said it was your birthday.”

  All I want is for my baby to be fine.

  The paramedic squeezed her hand.

  She was unloaded at the rear entrance to the hospital in a flurry of chaos and wheeled into a waiting area to be checked in.

  “We didn’t give her anything,” the paramedic told the admitting nurse, who wore orange scrubs with little black pumpkins over them and pumpkin earrings.

  “She’s pregnant. Pain in the abdominal area. She fainted. Knows her name, all that good stuff.” He winked at Crysta, who shivered on the stretcher. Emergency rooms were always like meat lockers.

  The paramedic walked past her. “Happy birthday.”

  Within an hour, they hooked her up to an IV and had checked her vitals, and the baby’s. The heartbeat was strong—she sighed with relief when she had no blood showing.

  An older male doctor arrived to read Crysta’s chart. “Everything looks okay. Babies shift things around in there and I imagine pinched a nerve. Make an appointment with your regular doctor for an ultrasound, just to be sure.” The doctor nodded at Crysta. “You are doing fine.”

  “Thank you.” More stupid tears trickled from her eyes. “Am I ever going to stop crying?”

  “Hormones. It’s part of the package.” The doctor signed off on the paperwork. “If you have a ride, you can go home and rest. There’s no need to keep you overnight.”

  He left and a nurse unhooked her from the IV, bandaging a spot of blood on Crysta’s hand. “Here is your paperwork. Do you have a ride?”

  “I need to call my friend.” She texted Lara, just the facts so as not to scare her while she was at work, and went to the waiting room.

  When she’d been a kid, the hospital had been a terrifying place where adults asked questions she wasn’t supposed to answer truthfully.

  How did you break your arm? How did you lose a tooth? How did you fracture that same wrist? She closed her eyes and swallowed down a wave of nausea.

  People were not kind to children they didn’t want. She’d experienced it, and Dillon had shared how he’d felt growing up being a burden to his mom.

  She put her arms protectively over her stomach. Not you, baby. I want you. I will protect you.

  It had been hard to say goodbye to Dillon, but the right choice was rarely the easy choice. Her fainting scare clarified any doubts. She wanted this baby.

  Lara arrived within twenty minutes, her face pale. She was dressed as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz and looked just as tornado-swept when she hurried into the waiting room. “Are you okay?”

  ***

  Dillon had the shittiest ride back to Jacksonville a man could have. He’d had expectations after all—despite Lara’s warning. He’d wanted Crysta to welcome his affections, had hoped that she’d be open to a relationship, of sorts.

  Why had she let him get all the way through dinner before telling him about her upcoming marriage?

  He cranked the stereo inside his truck and sang along with country western ballads about heartbreak. Women doing men wrong. Nobody sang about heartbreak better than a country artist—not that he’d admit that to Davey or Chapman.

  She’d been so beautiful…he’d lowered his guard. Foolishly.

  Of course, Crysta could marry whoever she wanted. And maybe he’d wished that it would be him—somewhere down the long road that they would share together. She didn’t seem like the kind of girl to marry for money. Security. Wealth. What else did this guy have that he didn’t?

  He might not be a millionaire but he had a nice chunk of change in the bank. Maybe the dude had bought her that new business?

  Shit. Just…shit.

  He parked his truck and dragged his overnight bag back into the apartment. For the second time today, which made the white walls even colder. The beige tile, the brown couch, boring. The same. Was he too dull for Crysta?

  With a growl of frustration, Dillon tossed his wallet on the kitchen counter. Also beige. Jesus, he needed some color in this place! He opened the fridge. A couple dried lemons, two lonely Coors. He’d cleaned out everything before leaving. Opening the freezer, he took out a frozen sausage pizza and dropped it on the stove.

  Checked the cupboards. Peanut butter and saltines. He needed to make a trip to the grocery store. Shoving the pizza back in the freezer, he grabbed both beers and headed out to his balcony overlooking the bay. The moon hid behind clouds, which matched his mood. No stars, either, to shine on water. Just nothing.

  Until Crysta, he’d never been lonely—and now, he only wanted her.

  And she was marrying somebody else. He drained both beers and went to bed.

  The next day, Dillon walked into a furniture place and picked out a new living room set in dark blue, with purple, light blue and gold accents. Curtains too. Did the same for his bedroom, in charcoals with soft yellow and orange. It would be delivered on Monday.

  He wasn’t boring, damn it. Going through his pictures he’d taken from all over the world, Dillon chose the most vibrant to put on canvas instead of art for the walls. The Grand Canyon was spectacular, as were the volcanoes in Hawaii. Taking the helo down inside had been a thrill—he bet Crysta would like it. He created a collage from his photos that shimmered with color.

  Grocery shopping was a necessary evil and as his reward, he went surfing
that afternoon. The Atlantic had baby waves compared to the Pacific Ocean, but it fed something in his soul to be on the water.

  He texted his buddies but he spent the week alone—proving to himself that he was good company. Damn it.

  That Friday night, Davey showed up at his place with Chapman and Mack. Dillon stood at the threshold of his apartment, not sure he wanted to let them inside. But honestly, he was kind of tired of his own excellent company. He stepped back and gestured them inside. “Hey.”

  “Hey? This place looks like an entirely different apartment.” Chapman, in jeans and a black t-shirt, brought in a six pack of Sam Adams.

  “Is this how you spent your week of R & R?” Davey, in shorts but long sleeves, put his keys on the counter, next to the house phone hanging on the wall. “Either you’ve turned into Martha Stewart or you got girl problems.”

  Mack wore khakis and boots, ready for a chill in the November air. He sighed deeply. “Only one thing makes a man ditch his pals, and that’s a woman. How is Crysta, anyway?”

  Dillon gritted his teeth. “Crysta who?”

  “Ha, good one,” Davey said. “She’s had you by the short hairs since you set eyes on her, dude.”

  That was the unfortunate truth.

  Chapman made his way to the kitchen and started opening drawers until he found a bottle opener. He popped four caps and handed out the bottles. “She was hot.” He lifted his amber brew in salute.

  She was. “Back off.” He drank, then shook his head, leading them from the kitchen to the living room. Closing the curtains against the night sky blocked the glare so he could watch TV. Not that it was on.

  “Just tell us.” Mack sat on the far end of the deep blue couch, a lighter blue pillow at his back. He’d hoped color would ease missing Crysta but it hadn’t.

  Chapman took the center of the sofa, and Davey sat on the armrest. Dillon faced his friends.

  “Crysta is marrying someone else.”

  “Bullshit.” Davey crossed his arms in front of his chest. “She was totally into you.”