LITMIR.BIZ

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well. They all would mean well. As if he was still the heartbroken mess Darcy’d left in her dust all those years ago. “Yeah. It was a long time ago.” He fitted the garland over the next hook and pretended the acid in his stomach was because he’d had a burrito for lunch and not because the only woman he’d ever really loved had returned to Holden’s Crossing. The woman who’d broken him into shards when she left.

      But his damn heart had never fully let her go.

      “All right, then. Let me know if you need anything.”

      In spite of the tension coiling through him, Mack laughed. “Like what?”

      Chase shrugged. “Whatever you need. We can talk to her...”

      “Oh, no. No talking.” He could just imagine how that particular conversation would go. He could almost pity Darcy. Almost. “Leave her alone, Chase. I’ll deal with her when I have to.”

      “If you say so.” Chase jingled his keys, then walked away. Mack heard his brother’s truck start up and forced himself to focus on his task. Now he felt exposed. Anyone who’d seen Darcy, anyone who knew the story—or thought they did—could be driving by right now, staring at him, whispering.

      He hated the whispers.

      He looped the last of the decoration over the final hook and secured it so the winter winds wouldn’t rip it free. Since the weather was steadily getting worse, he opted to leave the Christmas lights for another day. He hoped the wind wouldn’t rip them down—the way Darcy had ripped his heart.

      He closed the ladder and tried damn hard to ignore the mental picture of his ex-wife, with her long coppery locks and golden brown eyes. Damn it. Now he’d have Darcy on the brain after he’d been so successful at getting her out of it. He forced himself to turn away and haul the ladder back inside, banging it hard on the door. He swallowed a curse as pain radiated up his arm.

      “All done?” Sherry’s voice was cheery and he relaxed for a moment. His office manager didn’t know anything too personal about him, thank God. At least not yet.

      “Weather’s getting worse,” he said as he lugged the ladder down to the hall closet. “Wind is picking up, so I’ll finish tomorrow.”

      She gave a quick nod. “You’ve had a bunch of calls in the past half hour,” she said. “Your family, mostly.” She held the messages out, her attention back on the computer screen.

      “Ah. Thanks.” He took them and beat it back to his office. He skimmed through them quickly, then dumped them in the trash. Mom. Chase. His sister, Katie. How sad was it to be a thirty-two-year-old man and have your entire family band together over an ex-wife? Had the whole thing really been that bad?

      He closed his eyes, then opened them.

      Well, yeah, actually it had. Worse, probably.

      He stared out his office window at the snow, which had changed from pellets to flakes. The radio station playing in the waiting area announced, between Christmas tunes, that three to six inches of the white stuff was expected by morning. It’d be a white Thanksgiving. Not uncommon in northern Michigan.

      Darcy’s uncle would be thrilled. And so should Mack.

      Mack rubbed his hand over his face. Had Joe and Marla told their niece how he’d been helping out at the farm? Would she have come back if she’d known? He liked them. He enjoyed the labor of trimming the trees, mowing, whatever Joe needed done on the farm. They’d become friends, even with their shared history, but it was funny how the older man hadn’t mentioned Darcy’s imminent return. Mack was supposed to go out there tonight and help with some of the prep for the tree farm’s official opening the day after Thanksgiving. He wanted to make sure this last year went off flawlessly.

      Canceling wasn’t an option. He knew Joe needed the extra hands more than ever.

      Would Joe inform Darcy of the evening’s plans?

      A small part of him acknowledged the appeal of showing up and seeing her shocked reaction. Letting her see he was fine and completely over her. He’d moved on with his life. Seven years was a long time and he wasn’t that man anymore.

       Maybe she isn’t that woman anymore, either.

      It didn’t matter. He didn’t want to go there. He’d managed to compartmentalize his relationship with Darcy’s uncle away from what he’d had with her. That part of his life was over. At least until now, when it looked as though the past had come back to haunt him.

      Sherry appeared in his door. “Jim Miller and Kiko are here. Jennifer’s not back from lunch yet,” she said, then really looked at him and frowned. “You okay, Mack? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

      She wasn’t too far off the mark. In a way, he had.

      “I’m fine,” he assured her. “I’ll be with them in a few minutes.”

      As she exited his office, he sighed and pulled up Kiko’s chart on the computer. Kiko was one of many pets he’d see today. Jim and his wife were getting a divorce, and the older man had gotten Kiko, a Siamese cat, as company. Some marriages weren’t meant to be, no matter how promising they started out.

      Like his and Darcy’s.

      He filed the unhelpful thoughts away and went to get his patient, whom he could hear yowling from the waiting room. Still, in the back of his head, all he could think was She’s back.

      His ex-wife was back.

      * * *

      Darcy Kramer drove through downtown Holden’s Crossing, her hometown until she’d fled after the bust-up of her marriage at the young age of twenty-three. She’d always loved the town at Christmas. The cheery decorations, the snow, the old-fashioned charm of the buildings added up to magic for a young girl. Somehow there was comfort in knowing it hadn’t really changed.

      Had it really been almost eight years since she was here? She truly hadn’t intended to stay away so long. Shame tugged at her conscience. She knew Mack’s older brother, Chase, had seen her back at the gas station. The look he’d given her was far colder than the wind that whipped outside. Had he gone straight to Mack? Probably.

      Pain bloomed in her chest. The Lawless family pulled together tight when one of their own was hurt. Except, apparently, those related only by marriage. Those weeks after the accident and the loss of their baby, as her marriage crumbled under the weight of shared grief and her guilt, they’d set themselves firmly in Mack’s camp. And he’d turned to them for comfort, rather than her.

      She inhaled deeply and forced the memories down. To get through these next two weeks, she had to keep Mack out of her mind as much as possible. Her focus was helping her aunt and uncle, who’d raised her after she lost her parents, with their last Christmas season with the farm.

      She gripped the wheel a little tighter. One last Christmas before the tree farm went up for sale. Before he’d died, her father had asked his brother to include Darcy in the final season if they ever sold the farm. So she’d agreed to take two weeks’ vacation from her PR job in Chicago and come home.

      Home.

      Even though she hadn’t been here in many years, it was still her childhood home, entwined in her heart and her memories, both the good and not so good. She’d missed being here. But coming back—and possibly facing Mack—hadn’t been an option. Until now.

      She accelerated as she exited the town limits. The steadily falling snow wasn’t yet sticking to the roads, though it was starting to coat the grass. Figured, she’d get up here just in time for the first real snow of the season. Good timing, really. The snow added to the festive holiday atmosphere Kramer Tree Farm prided itself on.

      She flexed her fingers on the steering wheel. Two weeks. She could do it. Then she could go back to Chicago and her carefully ordered life. She’d worked so hard for some measure of peace.

      She turned on the road leading to the farm. Right

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