Page 13 of Mr. Valentine's Christmas

“Don’t! Don’t you dare tell him.” Along with standing, yelling didn’t help settle my stomach either. I held my middle and inhaled deeply.

“Fine. I won’t tell Zeke about Lucas,” she said.

My gaze traveled back to TV Lucas, my thoughts quickly turning to the man himself. Idly, my fingers danced across the waistband on my shorts. The man wassofuckable. With his perfect body and confident swagger, he was every woman’s dream come true. I couldn’t help fantasizing about what it would be like to have him all to myself for a night.

My face flushed with embarrassment as I realized my fingers were edging towards my underwear. Despite the heat of shame warming my cheeks, I couldn’t help but smirk at myself.

Playing with the drawstrings on my shorts, I walked out of the bedroom and joined Lydia in the kitchen. “So,” I said. “Supposing for a moment that I wanted to activate slut mode tonight, what do you think I should wear?”

A sly grin pulled at Lydia’s mouth. “Oh, that’s my sexy girl.”

Lucas

Talkingaboutthesubjectof death—even if it was the death of a family pet—with your aging parents is a weird and awkward thing. My mother’s face was stoic as usual while my dad’s head hung low, his eyes trained on something outside the window in the old kitchen. His steel-blue eyes glistened, tears welling but not falling.

I held my breath as they exchanged glances with one another before finally looking at me. Their faces softened but their expressions still held an unspoken sadness that resonated deep within me. I exhaled slowly as grief settled over me.

“Did Doctor Marshall say how long?” Dad asked, then immediately cleared his throat when he heard his voice cracking. He plopped his wrinkled hand over the tensely clasped hands of my mother. “Just so we know.”

“No, she didn’t,” I answered.

Dad nodded, patted mom’s hand. “Okay, I have some work to do in the garage before that snow finally shows up.”

He stood and draped his coat over his shoulders. Maggie’s head popped up from her bed and she hoisted herself up. She looked with a glimmer of hope at my dad as he shuffled across the kitchen. My father pushed open the back door. It creaked loudly.

The two of them went outside, my father observing Maggie’s every movement. I watched them go and sighed heavily, wishing I could give them more time together. All three of them. Honestly, all five of us.

Leo and I had outgrown this town years ago. We’d visit Covington Falls for a few days in the summer, and whenever we were doing business in the area, if we could spare the time. We prioritized the holidays on our schedules to maintain our family’s Christmas traditions. But if I counted, Leo and I probably spent a total of six weeks in town all year and that’s mostly due to the new office.

“Would you like me to make you some eggs?”

“No, thanks, ma.” Hearing my accent, I paused for a moment, then continued, “No, I already ate. Mom, I think it would be a good idea for you and dad to move into the lodge now.”

She smiled, reached out for my hand, and patted it. “I know you do, son.”

“Will you?”

“We’re not as helpless here as you and Leo think.”

“We don’t think you’re helpless, ma. We just want you both to be safe and taken cared of since neither of us can be here.”

“Lucas, your brother built a monstrosity of a house for us to live in and now you’re building something even bigger for people to work in, but neither of you will be here. What’s the point in that?”

Our parents never limited us. They always encouraged us to have dreams and to work hard to achieve them. Like most parents, they wanted their children to be happy. I’m sure they wanted us to be in Covington Falls with families of our own, but our lives were in L.A. now.

My mother stared back at me with eyes that were green like mine until she nodded. “I’ll talk to him. I’ll tell him it’s time. What’s going to happen to this place?”

“We’ll fix it up once we move your things over to the lodge, and then, I don’t know. We could rent it out. It’s got great bones. It just needs a little sprucing up.”

“Hmm,” she said.

“You know what? I just hired this amazing woman to run the office here. You’re going to love her.” I squeezed my mother’s hand. “Who knows, maybe she’ll be interested in the house.”

Mom smiled and shrugged her shoulders. “Who knows,” she said. “Maybe one of you’ll find time to give me grandbabies.”

I chuckled and immediately remembered what Leo said about sacrifice. How we’d given up so much over the years. Then I thought about Zoey and our date tonight. Doctor Marshall was a beautiful woman. She was smart and bold. She’d moved across the country to start her own business, buying and renovating the old clinic. My mother told me Zoey made house calls around the entire town for weeks while the repairs were being done.

That took a lot of courage. I admired her. Dr. Anderson’s clinic might have seen better days, but I’d never seen them. Like most of the structures on Main Street, the building was historic, but that was a word people used when the reality was the clinic had been outdated for years. The interior was pitiful when Leo and I took turns joining Dad for Maggie’s puppy visits. Now, the clinic looked fresh and modern. The walls were bright, cheery, and clean.

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