Page 7 of Can't Miss Christmas

She knew immediately he was talking about the divorce. She often thought the same thing herself. Her driving companion had a list of faults a mile long. He was bossy, obsessively prepared, and a little bit of a know-it-all. But he was also kind and upstanding, and he’d rip his heart out of his chest and give it to you on a platter for the asking.

And he was still the most attractive man she’d ever seen. That fact hadn’t dimmed in the least. Grace reminded herself sternly there was no point in thinking any of this. Divorce was final. There had been reasons for it. Attraction would linger, maybe forever, but so would the problems that caused them to separate in the first place.

They drove in uncomfortable silence, thesnick snickof the wipers like a heartbeat between them. Unwillingly, another memory crept into her consciousness. After the first time she’d slept with Max, she’d run into the bathroom and cried. It was as if she’d belonged to Graham and only Graham, and it had nearly killed her to be with someone else. But she’d done it, and Max was a good man. He simply wasn’t therightman.

Even after these years apart, Graham’s stamp on her seemed permanent, like a tattoo. Indelible. Undeniable. Oh, she’d fought it. Still fought it, telling herself it would fade with time. But a large part of her wondered if it ever would.

“Grace,” he said, his tone dead serious. “I have to tell you something.”

“What is it?” Her heart dropped down to her ankles, like that High Striker game at an amusement park. He’d met someone? He had cancer? His parents were sick? Instinctively, she clutched the dashboard for support.

What happened next seemed to happen in slow motion. One minute, they were staring ahead, into the swirling whiteness. The next moment, something big and brown was visible ahead of them, a shadowed mass in the road that loomed large and suddenly struck. Graham slammed on the brakes, but it was too late.

The car made contact with the enormous mass—an animal. Windshield glass shattered, air bags swelled and detonated. Grace’s head snapped backward and her arms flew up to shelter her face. White was everywhere, a massive cloud of airborne powder that made her cough and choke.

Then suddenly, all was still. She could hear the quiet shuffling sound of the snow as it landed on the windshield, obliterating it in seconds. A hissing sound emanated from the engine. Grace patted her chest, her arms, her face. All intact. The air bags had done their job.

As soon as she gathered her senses, she looked over at Graham. He was slumped over the wheel. Oh God, slumped! It took Grace a second to realize his airbag never completely deployed—and then she saw why. There was a massive antler sticking through the windshield. It must have pierced Graham’s bag at exactly the right time so it could not inflate.

Graham was unconscious—oh dear God, please, not dead. Not dead.

Panic paralyzed her. She was awful in emergencies. That was why she was an author! Yet she had to think and act. She unbelted herself, grasped Graham’s strong, broad shoulders, now dead weight, and shook them a little, calling out his name. No response.

Should she move him? You weren’t supposed to do that, were you?

Where the hell was her cell phone? Her purse had flown forward, and she could feel the contents crunching under her boots. In the icy blackness, she couldn’t see a thing.

Graham was as limp as a wrung-out rag. She laid him as flat as she could, reclining his seat, and rested him back against it.

“Graham,” she called, saying his name again and again. Tears blurred her sight, but she blinked them back. She somehow had to keep her shit together so she could think. Because they could not end like this. Not with so much unsaid.

All the emotion she’d been fighting, that she’d kept dammed up inside her, rushed out. She still missed him; she still thought about him. Spending this time together made her realize the ache in her heart for him had simply not healed. The sense of unfinished business between them was so strong, it made her tremble.

She’d been afraid of the truth. She should’ve been afraid of never getting the chance to tell it.

Back in high school, Grace had taken CPR when she worked at a summer camp, and she’d always had good intentions to take it again but…what was it she remembered? ABC…let’s see. Airway, Breathing…yes! That seemed a good place to start. She climbed over Graham, trying to ignore the sharp antlers sticking through the windshield. The wide-open eye of the dead deer seemed to stare at her like some kind of macabre Rudolph, adding to her sense of panic.

She opened his coat and leaned near his face, trying to hear or feel his breaths. Pressing a finger next to his windpipe, she felt for a pulse, but she was so panicked, nothing registered except her own erratic heartbeat.

She took a couple of deep breaths to calm down. Puffs of white air came out when she exhaled. As if she didn’t already know that being in this car was a ticking bomb, and time was quickly running out.

Despite the seeping cold, she unbuttoned a few buttons of his shirt. He wore a white undershirt, just like he used to so long ago, and for some reason, that made more tears spring up. Resolutely, she pressed her ear against his chest. It was hard, all curved, chiseled muscle. As she nestled her ear against his pec, she heard it. The strong, definite strum of his heart. Underneath her cheek, his chest rose and fell in a steady, strong rhythm.

Oh, praise Baby Jesus, he was breathingandpumping blood. The relief let loose a veritable waterfall, rolling down her cheeks, dotting his white dress shirt. She touched his face, felt the familiar sweet roughness, brushed back a lock of hair that fell close to the bloody gash on his forehead.

Blood trickled in a dark stream down his temple. She unwound the scarf from her neck and pressed it against his wound. While she waited for it to stop bleeding, she tried to figure out what to do next.

Unconscious, Graham looked like a different man. His square jaw didn’t seem quite so stubborn. The scowl of displeasure he often wore when he looked at her was gone, and in its place was a vulnerability, the childish innocence of a man asleep.

She whispered a quiet oath that she would take care of him. Better than she had the first time around.

There was not a soul on the road, no one to flag down. She flicked on the hazard lights and groped around on the floor for her cell, which she found scattered among her wallet, hairspray, and loose change. No bars.No fucking bars.She leaned her forehead against the side of his chest and sobbed.

“I’m sorry, Graham,” she whispered. “So, so sorry. For everything.”

It was going to end like this. On a misplaced mission to be somewhere for Christmas Eve, somewhere she’d insisted on going, regardless of how foolish a trip it was. Yes, she loved the hospital and the kids, but how much of her insistence was because she was dreading the holiday, that she wanted to feel needed and loved in a way she simply wasn’t by her own family? And now Graham was going to die and they were both going to freeze to death without being able to tell each other anything of real importance.

Suddenly, something grazed her back, faint and warm—Graham’s hand. She bolted upright, in time to see his eyes flutter open. The man who’d caused her so much heartache and pain, but who’d also given her so much joy and happiness, was aliveandawake, an unspeakable gift.

She fumbled for his hands and clutched them tightly. They were a little cold, and a little shaky, but he squeezed back, his big hand encompassing hers. The reaffirming feel of his hand reminded her for some reason of walking out of the church after their wedding ceremony. They’d clutched each other’s hands tightly, full of promises and anticipation and nerves.

“Don’t cry, Grace,” he said, his voice low and barely audible. “I’m really sorry Rudolph didn’t make it.” His mouth turned up in the tiniest quirk of a smile.

It was horrible about the poor deer. But the fact that Graham was back to being Graham—and trying to make her stop crying—made her inexplicably happy.

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