Page 56 of Bad Boy Bachelor Christmas
She frowned. “That’s not the Christmas spirit.”
“Veronica,” I said, “I’m sorry, I am, but this requires all of my attention right now. Can’t you give me an hour or two?”
“An hour or two always turns into six or seven with you, North. I know how you Waylon men are. If you’re not dragged away from the office, you’ll never leave.”
She didn’t understand—not tonight, anyway. More often than not she accepted my demanding work schedule from November through December, but tonight she seemed impatient. She knew I had big-ticket clients who’d been let down by my coordinator. Why was she picking right now to be fussy and needy?
“Tell you what,” I said, “let’s take a rain check on tonight. And tomorrow? Once all this is sorted. I’m all yours.”
She pouted. “I’ve heard that before.”
I reached out and guided her into my lap. She smelled like caramel and cinnamon from all the baking she’d done, and her black hair was a tousled mess pulled back in a low bun at the nape of her neck.
I gave her nose a brush with mine. “Bear with me. I know I’m a tedious man to be married to.”
She sighed, but a small smile graced her lips. “Fine.” She pushed out of my lap with her hands on my chest. My chair squeaked as if asking her to stay, but she moved to the door, the brief smile already gone. “I have some errands to run. We need eggnog and flour. Do you need anything while I’m out?”
I shook my head.
Veronica drummed her fingers on the doorframe three times—something she did whenever she didn’t quite want to leave.
“Drive safe,” I told her. “The roads are probably icy. Take the Land Rover.”
“Love you, baby.”
My eyes were already back on my computer screen. “Love you too.”
I woke with a gasp and a sharp pain in my chest. Sitting bolt upright, I clutched at my heart as it threatened to pound right out of my body. The hotel sheets were soaked through with my sweat and my jaw ached from clenching my teeth in my sleep.
I hadn’t dreamt of my wife in some time. Six months or so probably.
What did it mean that she was visiting me in my slumbering hours now?
Grimacing, I ran my hands up and down my face, rubbing away sweat as my stubble scratched at my palms. Veronica would have told me to shave.
I threw off the covers and went to the bathroom, where I stood under a stream of hot water in the shower, letting it chase away the lingering tightness in my chest and the hollow feeling in my gut.
If I could go back in time and change anything in my life, it would have been letting her leave the house that night. Eggnog and flour weren’t worth her life, but that’s exactly what that errand run had cost her. And me.
Everything.
Gone.
Just like that.
After turning off the water I stood in the shower stall for several minutes, letting the air dry the droplets of water on my body until I was chilled to the bone. I got out, threw on a hotel robe, and padded to the window, where I threw open the drapes and stared out at a snowy landscape. A crescent moon hung in the sky, shedding little light on the hotel grounds down below. Solar lights illuminated landscaped gardens, and twinkling Christmas displays of presents and reindeer winked up at me.
Nothing stirred down there. It was three thirty in the morning. I might very well have been the only person awake, minus hotel staff.
Veronica’s voice rang in my ears, and I shook my head to clear it. I missed her—God did I ever miss her—but I didn’t want to hear her. I thought I had put those nightmares to bed. Years of therapy had helped me work through the thickest parts of my grief. Had I screwed up by stopping my sessions? I’d been warned that there would be triggers that would bring memories surging back, but I couldn’t put my finger on what might have triggered this dream.
Winter.
Rolling my shoulders, I dispelled the thought.
How could the one person who had made me happy since Veronica’s death simultaneously be the reason I felt like such shit right now?
Winter.
