Lynda Sandoval - Her Favourite Holiday Gift

“Not so easy to forget then, huh?”

She bit her lip, feeling unsure. Unsure and hating herself for it. That was so her mother’s style. He was just a man. A man who hated her—she’d made sure of that after the fact. “I have to.”

“Then you will.”

Colleen’s throat closed. She wished she could be more like Megan, but they were cut from different bolts of cloth. She’d accepted that long ago. “Why do you believe in me more than I believe in myself?”

“That’s what best friends do. Now, breathe. And call me tonight and tell me all about it.”

“Okay.”

“And come in for a massage soon.”

“I will.”

“So…how does he look?”

“Megan! I can’t believe you’d ask me that in my time of stress,” Colleen said, but she couldn’t help laughing.

“Hey, you can’t blame me. He’s sort of legendary in the life and times of Colleen Delaney.”

“It was one night. ” Keep telling yourself that.

“Yeah. I know. Of mind-blowing jungle sex. You don’t hear that phrase every day. So? How does the man look?”

A pause ensued.

“Amazing,” Colleen said ruefully, wishing he was paunchy and balding, with a big gin blossom nose, like the partners at her firm. That would make it so much easier not to feel. She couldn’t risk feeling. “He looks better than he did during school. Which totally sucks, I might add.”

“Well, don’t think about it. Try not to look at him.”

“Right. Helpful. Should I blur my eyes?”

Megan laughed softly again. “It’s all going to be fine in the end.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do. Now, go to lunch and do your thing.” A smooch sound carried over the line.

“What’s my thing, though? Help!”

Megan cleared her throat. “You do realize this is what you’ve always done, right?”

“Huh?”

“Freak out about Eric Nelson, then call me?”

“I’m not freaking out, Megs. Freaking out is what teenagers do. I’m just—”

“Go to lunch,” Megan said, laughing.

For the life of her, Colleen couldn’t find a single thing funny with this nightmare….

“You do realize this is what you’ve always done, right?”

“Huh?”

Jack laughed as though he hadn’t a care. “Freak out about Colleen Delaney, then call me.”

Eric shook his head as he navigated a turn on the icy Chicago streets. “I’m not freaking out, Jack. Freaking out is what fifteen-year-old boys do at the first glimpse of bikini-clad cleavage on the Navy Pier every spring.”

“Case? Rested.”

“The woman gets under my skin, that’s all.”

“Interesting,” Jack mused.

“Not that kind of under my skin,” Eric lied, pulling into an empty curbside spot near The Chambers, a popular eatery with legal types and others who worked at the courthouse. He cut his engine. “I spoke to her for all of five minutes and I’m sure my blood pressure skyrocketed.” He wouldn’t tell his old friend exactly why. “She’s argumentative. Prickly. Annoying.”

“Which you hate.” Jack’s statement didn’t sound convincing.

“As a matter of fact, I do.”

“Is she still totally hot?” Jack asked, a smile threaded through his words.

Eric closed his eyes for a moment. Strength. He needed strength and lots of it. Yes, Colleen Delaney had never been hotter, but that didn’t help the situation. “Never mind. I need to go. The tables get snatched up this time of day.”

“You and Colleen have a nice lunch,” Jack drawled. “Give her a kiss from me.”

“I’m sure she’d appreciate hearing that from the man her client’s suing,” Eric said in a droll tone, before hanging up, more exasperated than when he’d called his old pal. Jack seemed determined to paint his relationship with Colleen in rosy tones, and Eric couldn’t put himself into that position again. Official verdict: love and marriage had warped Hanson’s brain. That’s the only explanation Eric could come up with.

A welcoming warmth enveloped him as he entered The Chambers. He inhaled the familiar aromas of coffee and grilled burgers and hot apple pie, and his mouth watered. Midday service was in full, bustling swing. He brushed snowflakes from the shoulders of his wool overcoat, stamped his feet on the mat.

“Just one?” asked the hostess, who’d swirled up in mid-busy, her movements compact and efficient. “Wanna sit at the counter?”

He smiled. “Actually, I’m meeting someone. Do you have a table? Preferably someplace quiet.”

“We don’t get much quiet at lunchtime as you know, but…” The petite blonde tapped her bottom lip with her index finger and scanned the dining room, which was filled with the tink-tink of fork against plate and a healthy serving of boisterous legal debate punctuated by laughter and movement. Stark contrast to the snow-quieted city outside the large windows. Eric was convinced that snow was God’s way of telling the human race to shut up and simply be.

A group of lawyers Eric vaguely recognized but couldn’t name stood up from a table in the back corner and began donning overcoats, gloves and wool scarves. The hostess turned back, her thumb aimed over her shoulder at the group of men. “I can have that table bussed for you if you don’t mind waiting a couple of minutes.”

“That’s fine. She hasn’t arrived yet anyway.”

“Great.” The hostess gave him a pert grin. “It’ll be clean and ready when your girlfriend gets here.”

Eric opened his mouth to correct the young woman’s misconception—why, he didn’t know—but she’d left as quickly and competently as she’d arrived.

Had the whole world gone soft on him?

Could a man and a woman not share a business meal without people thinking it was something more?

Then again, did it matter?

The ding of the entry bell announced another lunchtime arrival. Eric glanced over his shoulder just as the swoosh of the door brought in a gust of cold along with Colleen, her alabaster cheeks cottoncandy pink from the weather, raven hair flecked with fat, white snowflakes.

Their eyes met.

His heart stuttered.

She dropped her gaze.

He took a slow breath and resisted the urge to wick away the snowflake that had landed, shimmering and perfect, on her left cheekbone. He could make out the unique design of it, and against the backdrop of Colleen’s face, the effect staggered him. Swallowing past this unexpected, unwanted, unnerving visceral pull toward her, he said, “They’re cleaning a table.”

“Fine,” she said, unknotting a cornflower-blue cashmere scarf that matched her eyes and shrugging out of her tailored gray tweed coat. As she stuffed the scarf inside one coat sleeve, she added, “Parking’s a real joy around here,” in a wry tone.

“Just like always,” Eric said, utterly distracted by the snowflake melting on her perfect cheek. “Did you have to walk far?”

Her gaze, wary as ever, met his for one quick moment before darting away. She draped her coat over one arm and shrugged her handbag higher on her shoulder. “It wasn’t a problem.” Fully melted, the former snowflake trickled down her cheek like a teardrop. She brushed the moisture away, unaware of his fixation on it. “How about you?”

“What?” He pulled himself back into the conversation, if you could label their lame, superficial exchange as such. “Oh. No. I’m right out front.”

“Still have that legendary Nelson parking karma then.”

“Something like that,” he said, surprised that she’d remembered. For some reason, whenever he envisioned the perfect parking spot, it always appeared for him. It’d been that way since he’d gotten his license at sixteen, and a source of great envy and many conversations among his law-school classmates years ago.