by Rachel Lacey
But as the date drew nearer, Mandy realized how lonely the holidays were going to be without them. All of her friends had settled down now. Emma and Ryan had a baby. They’d invited her over for Christmas dinner tomorrow night, but somehow it didn’t make her feel any less alone tonight.
For the most part, she liked being single, had never really wanted to settle down and get married. But she was living in the wrong place to take advantage of the single life. The small town of Haven, nestled deep in North Carolina’s Smoky Mountains, was the kind of town where everyone else her age had begun the process of getting married and having babies.
Maybe she belonged in a big city full of singles like herself. Or maybe she just didn’t belong anywhere. The truth was, she’d felt so empty and hollow for so long that she didn’t remember what it was like to be full, of love, of life…of anything. She was just this shell of a person, waiting for the weight of the world to crush her.
Headlights slashed through the night, and Mandy tensed. She blamed Emma for making her paranoid about someone slamming into her car here on the side of the road. Her hazard lights were on. No one was going to hit her.
But these headlights slowed and pulled in behind her. And the next thing she knew, there was a man loping toward her car, a man with hazel eyes, blond hair, and the kind of scruffy beard that made goosebumps rise up and down her arms. He hadn’t had that beard when they’d snuck out of their junior prom together. His cheeks had been smooth then, boyish.
Tipsy from spiked punch and adolescent hormones, they’d fumbled their way through a spur-of-the-moment decision not to end prom night as virgins. It had been messy and awkward and somehow…perfect.
Afterward, she’d avoided him, preferring the misery of her own self-inflicted solitude at that time in her life. But she’d often thought about Cal over the years. And now, here he was. All grown up and headed straight for her.
Cal Rocha had thought working Christmas Eve meant drawing the short straw. But he felt like he’d won the fucking lottery as he walked toward Mandy’s SUV. Mandy Carson, the girl he’d had the most all-consuming puppy love for back in high school, the one who’d gotten away.
They’d been acquaintances, not even friends. Two lonely souls who’d shared one incredible night together. He’d thought of her often over the years. Once, he’d gone so far as to look her up and send her a message through Facebook, but she never responded. Now fate had thrown her in his path, and he figured it was time to find out once and for all if he and Mandy still shared a spark, a connection, whatever it was that he’d never truly found again since that night on a picnic blanket beneath the stars behind the high school track.
She stepped out of the SUV and faced him, dark hair blowing around her face like a reverse halo, in sharp contrast to her pale skin. His breath leaked into the night, his mind empty of anything but the way it felt to look into her blue eyes, like he’d locked onto something solid, something rare, something that hadn’t changed in over a decade.
“Mandy,” he said, his voice gone low and gravelly.
“Hi Cal. It’s been…a while.”
He nodded. “Heard you hit a hawk?”
She gulped. “Yeah, it’s…it’s caught up in the front grill of my car.”
That didn’t sound promising. He walked around to the front of her SUV. The tawny head of a broad-winged hawk protruded from the plastic webbing on the front of the car. The hawk appeared alert, its head bobbing, beak snapping. “Well, that’s something I’ve never seen before.”
“Leave it to me, right?” Mandy said with a hint of a smile.
“Let me get my gloves, and we’ll see about getting her out of there.” He turned and walked back toward the truck. A few stray flurries blew with the night breeze, but they weren’t—as far as he knew—expecting a white Christmas.
He opened the covered truck bed and took out his cowhide animal-handling gloves, a plastic animal crate, and a bolt cutter. With any luck, he could free the bird without too much trouble, bring her back to the center for a checkup and overnight observation, and have her back in the wild tomorrow. Best case scenario.
Mandy crouched beside him as he squatted in front of her SUV. The scent of her perfume carried with the wind, something exotic like night jasmine, or maybe it was just the way the night pressed around them, so intensely dark and desolate, that made everything about the moment seem heightened.
“First thing we need to do is calm her down,” he said quietly.
“How do you know it’s a girl?” Mandy whispered, leaning closer.
“I don’t. Just seems more personal than calling her ‘it.’” He reached into the pet crate and took out a cloth raptor hood. He tugged on his gloves before carefully slipping the hood over the bird’s head. The darkness it provided should help calm her while he worked.
“Don’t worry about the car,” Mandy said softly. “Whatever you need to do to get her out.”
“Thanks.” This was the approach he’d hoped to take, and he was glad to have Mandy’s blessing before he started cutting apart the grill of her car. Using his left hand to hold the bird in place, he gripped the bolt cutter in his right and began snipping through plastic, cutting away a hole big enough to extract the hawk.
He lifted the bird free gingerly, hands wrapped around her wings to keep her from struggling, but she was limp and compliant in his hands, almost alarmingly so. Either she was going into shock, or she’d sustained more damage from the impact than he’d first thought. “I need to get her back to the center immediately.”
Mandy nodded, rising to her feet beside him.
After all these years, fate had finally thrown them back in each other’s faces, and he wanted…needed to see her again. He didn’t want to say goodbye at all, but there was really no way around it, at least for tonight.
“On your way to see your parents?” he asked as he tucked the bird inside the crate and closed the latch.
“No,” Mandy said. “They’re out of town this year.”
“Other family in town?” He walked to the truck and set the crate gently on the floor in front of the passenger seat.
“No.”
“I pulled the Christmas Eve shift myself, figured it was only fair since there’s no one waiting at home for me.”
“Just you working at the center tonight?” Mandy asked, raising her eyes from the animal crate to meet his. The air between them seemed to warm from the contact of their gaze.
“Just me.”
“Need a hand?” She stepped closer, dropping her gaze back to the hawk. “I just want to make sure she’s all right.”
“I could always use a hand, if there’s nowhere you need to be.”
“Nowhere,” she repeated, and a smile dusted her lips the way the snow flurries had begun to dust their clothing. “I’ll follow you.”
Will you? he wanted to ask, because she’d done nothing but run ever since the night of their junior prom. But maybe tonight, maybe this time, things would work out differently.
* * *
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About the Author
Rachel Lacey is a contemporary romance author and semi-reformed travel junkie. She's been climbed by a monkey on a mountain in Japan, gone scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef, and camped out overnight in New York City for a chance to be an extra in a movie. These days, the majority of her adventures take place on the pages of the books she writes. She lives in warm and sunny North Carolina with her husband, son, and a variety of rescue pets.
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