Cole's Christmas Wish

by Tracy Madison

  “Maybe so,” she admitted, her heart heavier than ever before. “But surviving isn’t the same as flourishing.” Afraid she’d back away—run away—if she didn’t dive in, she pulled in a breath and...dived. “I know I hurt us, Cole. I know I hurt you. I’m the one who’s sorry.”

  Anger replaced the hurt, but it glittered just as brightly. “Four years, Rachel.”

  “I know.”

  “Four years since you left my hospital room, promising to return as soon as possible.”

  “I know,” she repeated. “Cole—”

  “You never returned,” he said. “Not until I invited you.”

  “You’re right. I didn’t.” She shoved her hands under her thighs. “When I left, I was confused and scared. My father called, but you know that, and with the way things were with you, with us, it seemed—and I’m so ashamed to admit this—easier to leave.”

  He shook his head as if he had water in his ear. “Explain.”

  So she did, slowly and calmly, enunciating every word and doing her utmost best to keep her emotions from leaking through. She told him how she hadn’t known who to be with him—his friend or his girlfriend—how lost she’d felt, and how because of that, going to her parents had held an odd sense of comfort.

  All of which had to have sounded incredibly lame and weak considering the struggles Cole had faced at the time. But her words, every one of them, were the honest to God truth. Whether he understood them or not, accepted them or not, hated her forever or...loved her, she wouldn’t embellish on why she’d done what she’d done.

  To do so would be unfair and...as wrong as leaving in the first place.

  One tear, and then another, dripped down Rachel’s cheeks. Irritated with herself, she wiped them away. She didn’t want Cole to think she was after his sympathy, or an easy path to forgiveness. Her emotions were just too raw, too...fragile to hold in.

  “I’m sorry,” she mumbled, still wiping her tears. “I’m so sorry for abandoning you when you needed me, for not being the friend you deserved. I really let you down. I’ll...I’ll never forgive myself for that. Never in a million-and-one years.”

  He closed his eyes, let out a long sigh. “You’re being too hard on yourself.”

  “Oh, no. That is one thing I’m not doing.”

  A heavy, weighted silence hung between them. Finally, Cole opened his eyes again, shoved his thumbs in his jean pockets. “Tell me why you didn’t come back until last year.”

  His gaze was steady and sure, waiting.

  “You told me not to,” she said simply, even though the memory hurt. “I didn’t feel as if I would be welcome until I knew you were ready to see me. That you wanted to see me.”

  That also was the truth.

  Cole’s brow furrowed. “I was hurt, Rachel. In every way a man can be hurt. I shouldn’t have said that, but you should have tried again. The next day. The next week. The next month. You shouldn’t have given up. I wouldn’t have given up.”

  “I know that! God, don’t you think I know that about you? I know who you are, Cole.”

  She went to him then, her tears running faster and harder, her heart exploding with pain and loss and sorrow, and reached for him...so she could hug him or kiss him or what, exactly, she didn’t know. All she knew was that she had to touch him, comfort him. Be there for him.

  If he would let her.

  Cole took a jerky step backward and looked at her as if she had lost her mind.

  “I’m sorry,” she repeated, stunned and hurt and shamed all over again. “You don’t know how sorry I am, how much I wish I could turn back the clock and change our past. Change my behavior. I would, Cole. Know that, please, if nothing else.”

  He swallowed and nodded. Combed his fingers through his hair. Looked at her long and hard, all the way to her soul, and deeper yet.

  “I do know that,” he said finally. “I know who you are too, Rachel. I really, really do.”

  Relief unfurled inside, swift and all-encompassing. Trusting her instincts, believing he wouldn’t reject her again, she went to him. He accepted her, pulled her tight to his chest, stroked her hair and soothed her tears. A sense of security, of rightness, overcame her.

  This was home. It was as simple and complicated as that.

  “Do you think we’ll be able to move past this?” she whispered into his shoulder. For a devastating few minutes there, she’d been sure she was going to lose him entirely. She never wanted to feel that way again. “Can you forgive me?”

  There wasn’t even a heartbeat of a pause. “I’ve already forgiven you, sweetheart.”

  “Okay, that’s...that’s good. I’m... Thank you.”

  “Welcome. Thing is, Rach, this isn’t all on your shoulders.” He pulled back and tipped her chin up with his fingers, so they were eye to eye. “I had my own demons to contend with, and I should’ve said something about this before now. Can you forgive me?”

  “Yes,” she said. And it really was that easy. “Of course I can.”

  “Whew,” he said, miming wiping sweat from his forehead. “Glad our friendship is solid.”

  Wait a minute. He’d just said he’d forgiven her, had said they’d be able to move past this, had even asked her to forgive him. Rachel stepped back, needing the space to think.

  “Did...um...this help you at all with your Mary dilemma?” She slid her palms down her jeans, waited and hoped and prayed a little, too. “I mean, if you can forgive me—”

  “Mary and I are over,” Cole said abruptly, with a finality no one would question. “What I can forgive my friends for is a fair bit different than what I can forgive my potential wife for. I made a mistake thinking otherwise. A mistake I’ll correct as soon as I...as soon as I can.”

  “Oh,” Rachel whispered, fighting back a new onslaught of tears. Uh-uh. No more crying. Not here, not when she wouldn’t explain the reason why to the man who had just broken her heart. And he didn’t have a clue in his thick skull. Not. A. One. “That’s...too bad.”

  “Don’t look so sad, Rach. Mary will be fine. Hell, I doubt she’ll even miss me.” Cole gave her his wide, charming grin, and came close enough to chuck her chin. As if she were his sister. “You and I are good, though. Forever friends, right?”

  Well, seeing as that was the best they were ever going to be, she’d take it. Of course she would. But she would never stop longing for what they didn’t have, what they couldn’t have.

  “Yes,” she said softly, quietly. “Forever friends. Just like always.”

  There was a dim light visible at the end of the dark tunnel. Cole would never know how close she had come to spilling her heart, to telling him how much she loved him.

  Pride, it seemed, worked fairly well as a silver lining.

  Chapter Eleven

  A night of sleepless tossing and turning had made one point abundantly clear to Rachel. She couldn’t spend this Christmas in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. After last night’s episode with Cole, she needed to put some distance between them.

  But not forever and most definitely not like before. Never like before.

  However, right now she needed to be somewhere that Cole wasn’t, just for a little while. Some place where every last thing didn’t remind her of him. Somewhere she could lick her wounds, find a sense of stability again and come to terms with all that had occurred. And she needed to do these things in a place she wouldn’t—couldn’t—accidently bump into Cole.

  He knew her
too well. Even when they were kids she was never able to hide her misery from him for very long. He’d poke, prod and badger relentlessly, asking questions until she broke down and shared every last detail. It would be no different this time. And how in the world would their friendship recover from that? She truly didn’t think it would.

  Added in to all of those very valid reasons, her parents needed her. They had called, as she’d known they would. And yes, they’d each asked her to return to New York, just as she’d also known they would. Each blaming the other. Each saying that Rachel’s presence was needed for the other. And yes, she’d agreed. Of course she had.

  Because she couldn’t stay here. Because they needed her. Both valid reasons.

  This time, though, she would not become their private tennis ball. Oh, she would be there for them to offer comfort and her support. Just being there was important, as well. Especially with a word such as divorce being bandied about.

  She still didn’t know how she felt about that possibility. Not really. At the end of it all, whether her parents stayed married or not, she wanted them to find some peace. Hell. All of them, including Rachel, needed to find some peace.

  So, yes, she’d be there for them. They were her family, after all. But she wouldn’t fall into the accustomed routine. She might still be their daughter, but she wasn’t a child any longer, she was an adult. As an adult, she’d sit down with them individually, explain her limits and go from there. One day at a time, one issue at a time. Maybe, if she held her ground, they’d eventually meet her halfway. Well, with any luck at all, she hoped they would.

  If they didn’t, she’d cross that bridge when she came to it.

  Rachel pulled her suitcase from the closet and began the process of packing for her return trip. She’d been lucky to find a flight the weekend before Christmas. Luckier yet to find a flight that left this evening. She’d be home by ten and tucked into her own bed by eleven. Then, tomorrow she’d wake up in New York and would begin the process of healing.

  The second she regained her equilibrium, Rachel would make plans to return for a normal, non-crazy visit with Cole. And this time, she wouldn’t wait for an invitation.

  When she’d finished with her suitcase, she turned her attention toward the Christmas tree. It hadn’t even been up a full week, and already it had to come down. It was sad, but not the saddest element in her life at the moment, so she went to work removing the ornaments one at a time. She wrapped and placed each one back in its box, fighting off the memories they held. There was no time to linger, no time to dwell on what each lovely ball of glass meant.

  Rachel closed the lid on the ornament box and started untwisting the lights. When the tree was achingly bare, she hauled it to the curb, where it looked—in her current state of mind—sad and forlorn and...well, rejected.

  She continued on this way, handling each necessary task with a businesslike attitude, mentally checking off items from her to-do list as she went. Throughout it all, she stifled her emotions, working to keep them even and her mind blank, and just kept pushing forward. If it were at all possible, she’d rather not shed one more tear until she was safely in another state.

  Finally, she exhaled a shaky breath and walked around the house, one room at a time, ascertaining she hadn’t forgotten anything that she wanted to take back with her to New York. The list was small. A few books she hadn’t gotten to, her cell-phone charger and—when she returned to her bedroom—the vase Cole had given her. That stupid vase.

  That stupid, beloved, beautiful vase burst her moratorium on tears into smithereens. Dammit, she didn’t want to cry. Didn’t want to sink into that black hole of misery again. Didn’t want to be reminded of the very many ways she’d screwed up.

  She sucked in a gulping breath, and then another, and tried to calm down. But the tears kept falling. Her throat closed, her chest balled up so tight it hurt and her sobs became an unrelenting, powerful explosion that she couldn’t begin to stop.

  “This sucks!” she yelled into the empty room. “Sucks, sucks, sucks!”

  Stomping over to the vase, she picked it up and stared at it, ran her finger along the row of tiny, hand-painted flowers Cole had said reminded him of her eyes, and then, because she could conceive of no other action to take, crawled into her bed.

  She curled up beneath the quilt, dragging it over her head, shutting out the world and embraced the pain. Pressing the vase to her chest, she gave in to the overwhelming grief assaulting her and allowed herself a good old-fashioned cry.

  When she had no more tears left to shed, she gasped raggedly one last time before crawling out from beneath her tomb. Dry, hollow and hurting down to her toes, she gently set the vase on her desk and very purposefully grabbed her suitcase.

  She wouldn’t take the vase home with her, it would be too painful, would stir up too many emotions, too many memories. Rachel firmly closed the bedroom door, shutting the pain inside. She wouldn’t come upstairs again during this visit.

  Four hours until she had to leave for the airport. Everything she’d had to do here was done, the house was prepared to sit empty for...who knew how long? Rachel closed her eyes and squeezed her hands into tight fists, counted to ten and straightened her spine.

  There was only one item left on her to-do list. An essential item. One task yet to complete. And one that would very likely have her crying all the way to the airport.

  The only thing she had to do now was say goodbye to Cole.

  * * *

  For the entire day, Cole had gone over the prior night’s events with a fine-tooth comb, rehashing every word, every look, every flicker of Rachel’s eyelashes.

  What was it? What had he missed?

  He kept thinking there was something there, something that hadn’t seemed important at the time, some bit of information that he hadn’t latched on to, but damn if he could locate it. All he had was this...buzzing in his brain, this incessant push to keep at it, to nail down the mysterious something, and not to stop until he had identified it and figured out what it meant.

  Problem was, he didn’t know what he was looking for.

  Cole finished ringing up his current customer and tried to set the insistent itching aside. Yesterday, in every way except for one, had been about as bad as a day could get. Still, having that talk with Rachel had been cathartic and necessary, for both of them. In the end, forgiving her was as easy as breathing. In the end, he’d realized he’d already forgiven her. He’d just needed to hear her explain, in her words, the whats and whys of the situation.

  Forgiving himself, though...well, that was another story altogether.

  If he’d just broached his concerns earlier, they might have had a chance. If she’d explained her side of things earlier, they still might have had a chance. Basically, from Cole’s point of view, they’d both behaved foolishly. They were, from an outside perspective, equally to blame. Why, then, did he feel as if the burden of guilt rested solely on his shoulders?

  The bell on the door rang, announcing a customer’s entrance. Cole glanced up with a welcoming smile, ready to ask if he could be of any help. His smile widened. Instead of some random person, his gaze landed on Rachel. As always, the sight of her warmed him from the inside out, made him feel more alive. She just had that affect on him. Even now.

  Approaching the counter, she whisked her hair over one ear. He noticed right off that she looked a tad on the pale side, as if she hadn’t slept well. That bothered him.

&n
bsp; “You’re a sight for sore eyes, darlin’,” he said with an easy grin. “I was just thinking I could use a coffee break. Feel like walking over to the Beanery?”

  Haley was supposed to leave in a few, but Cole figured he could sweet talk his sister into staying for thirty extra minutes. Besides which, the only surefire way he knew of to realign his focus, to put Rachel solidly in the friend category, was to spend time with her.

  Normal time. Doing stuff friends did. Like grabbing a coffee together.

  “I’m sorry, Cole, I can’t,” she said softly, hesitantly, in the same odd beat she’d had yesterday. “That’s actually what I stopped by to tell you.”

  “You stopped by to tell me you can’t go to the Beanery? Impressive, Rach, seeing how I just now asked.” Okay, it was a lame joke, but Cole had recognized the precursor to bad news.

  He was, he found, exhausted to the bone from hearing bad news.

  “No, no. That wasn’t what I meant.” She scraped her teeth over her bottom lip, darted her gaze downward. “I came to tell you that...well, that I’m leaving. Tonight.”

  “You’re leaving?” he asked, feeling like an imbecile for doing the statement-to-question thing he teased her for, but he needed clarification. Urgently. “As in leaving Steamboat Springs, tonight, with Christmas a mere three days away?”

  “Yes,” she said in more of a sigh than anything else. Her eyes, he noted, had a hollow quality that also bothered him. “I made the arrangements this morning.”

  “This morning?” He set aside his concerns as an old hurt rolled in. “And you’re just telling me now?” Why did this feel like the other time she’d left, when the two instances bore little-to-no similarities?

  For one thing, he wasn’t lying injured in a hospital bed. And there weren’t any doctors around, giving him dire warnings that his career was probably over. Finally, to his chagrin, even though he’d had the opportunity, he hadn’t kissed Rachel less than twenty-four hours ago.