12 Christmas Romances To Melt Your Heart Read online

  I was on the verge of giving up, in all honesty. Maybe online dating worked for some people, but I seemed to only find creepers.

  But then last week, Kelsey had convinced me to expand my net. She’d encouraged me to search through profiles of men who might be long distance instead of localized to the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area, and see whom Match might pair me up with.

  I hadn’t had time to take a look since I’d made the change until now. There wasn’t any point in denying that my nerves were through the roof when I logged in to my account.

  The first few Match suggestions I came across were as squicky as the men I’d encountered in the early weeks of my endeavor. I checked the boxes to delete them and moved on down the list. There was one man in his early sixties who lived near Chicago and sounded promising. He’d been married for over thirty years and was a widower looking to connect with someone. Three kids, two grandchildren, and, best of all, no dick pic in his profile. I moved him to my maybe list and scrolled down to see who else there was before making a decision as to whether I should contact the widowed grandpa.

  And then my heart stopped. Completely quit beating. My chest tightened around it, sending tears to my eyes before, slowly, my pulse kicked back into gear. Because there, smiling back at me through my computer monitor the way he always had in person, was Jim.

  He was older, sure. His hair was all gray now, and he wore glasses, but it was definitely the man who still owned my heart. Everything always seemed to point me back in his direction.

  I knew what he looked like these days, even without the photo reminder. After all the years he’d spent playing in the NHL, he’d gone on to become a team executive. It had been easy to follow his career since he’d spent so much of it in the limelight. I wouldn’t deny it—I still stalked him online sometimes, keeping up with the teams he’d worked for and watching interviews so I could hear his voice. No matter how many wrinkles he might have, and no matter how gray his hair had turned, his voice was still the same.

  He’d hurt me deeply—there was no point arguing that fact—but I still craved the sound of his voice. Sometimes, twenty years later, I woke up in the middle of the night and felt for him in the bed next to me, my heart breaking all over again when my hand came up empty.

  Because that’s how I had felt without him all these years.

  Empty.

  In the twenty years since I’d left, the hurt had lessened and forgiveness had blossomed in my heart, even though Dillon still held the sort of grudge that only a boy who’d been deprived of his father could hold. Even though I’d forgiven Jim, though, I wasn’t prepared for the kind of gut-wrenching, heart-squeezing response I was currently experiencing over finding his profile on a silly dating site.

  I knew I shouldn’t do it, that putting myself through this was only asking for trouble, but I couldn’t stop myself. I clicked on his profile and read every single word.

  It turned out it wasn’t Jim who’d created the profile, even. Some of his players’ wives had covertly put it together. They’d written: For years, we’ve watched as Jim has given dozens of people—players and otherwise—a second chance, but we’ve never seen him do it for himself. We know he was married once. We don’t know what happened to bring that marriage to an end, but at this point it doesn’t matter. He’s the kindest man any of us know, and he deserves to have someone in his life who will love him the way he loves every single person he’s come into contact with. And because of that, we want to help him out. Maybe give him a little shove in the right direction. If you think you might be that woman—if you want to be treated like a queen by a kind, considerate, caring, loving, giving man—then send us a message. We would love to talk to you.

  My phone rang, and I glanced down to see Dillon’s name and photo flashing at me. I swiped my thumb over the screen to answer. “Hello?”

  “Mom?” He waited a beat. Then, “Why are you crying?” he demanded.

  Was I crying?

  I reached up to my cheek with my other hand and came away with salty tears on my fingertips. How was it that my son could tell that from only hearing a single word from my mouth, and I didn’t even realize it was happening? And how long had I been sitting here with tears falling down my cheeks? I glanced down to find dark, wet spots on my shirt. Big ones. I must have been at it for a while. It might have even started the instant I’d seen Jim’s picture pop up on my monitor.

  “Mom?” Dillon repeated.

  “I’m fine.” Fine probably wasn’t the right word, but I wasn’t sure what would be better.

  “You don’t sound fine.”

  “Well, maybe I’m not right this minute. But I will be.”

  “What’s going on?”

  I rested the phone between my cheek and my shoulder so I could use both hands to type a response to the women who wanted to set up my ex-husband. “I think I’m about to reconcile with your father.”

  Silence met me on the other end of the line.

  Chapter 2

  Elaine

  Two days before Christmas, I stood at baggage claim at PDX, luggage in hand, and searched the sea of faces for Laura Weber. She’d texted me a picture of herself so I’d know who I was looking for, but I was shaking so hard I wasn’t sure I’d recognize the back of my own hand. I hadn’t been this nervous since the day of my wedding. Lucky for me, she tapped me on the shoulder before I’d found her.

  “Here,” she said, passing me a brown paper bag that undoubtedly held a bottle of wine. She took the handles of one of my suitcases. “Can’t drink it in the car, but there’s no law that says you can’t drink it before you get in.”

  I took a breath, and then I took the wine.

  She passed me her keys, which had a corkscrew attached.

  “How did you know this was exactly what I’d need?”

  “Just a guess. I’ve always got some handy.” She headed out of the building toward the parking lot.

  “You’re an angel.” I followed her, taking a long swallow and hauling my other bag behind me.

  “Be sure to tell my husband that when you meet him, because when he finds out that I’ve been meddling with Jim’s love life…” She shook her head.

  “You’re meddling for good reason, though.”

  “I don’t think Dave will see it that way, but we’ll run with your suggestion for now. I like it better than reality.” She stopped behind an SUV and clicked the remote so the back end would open. We loaded the bags in, and she glanced at her watch as she closed it. “We’ve got time before the game tonight to get you checked in at your hotel if you want, or we can head over to meet up with the other girls and introduce you around. Some of them can’t get to the arena until later, but my daughters are both there already, and Paige Bergstrom said she and her girls would probably be there early, too.”

  As much as heading to the hotel first sounded appealing, I knew it was a bad idea. It would only allow me more opportunities to chicken out, and I didn’t leave Dillon and Kelsey at Christmas in order to get cold feet. I had to do this. I shook my head. “Let’s just go to the arena.”

  “Whatever you want,” she said. She took the wine, replaced the cork, and packed the bottle in the back with all my things before we climbed into our seats.

  On the way, she chitchatted about everything under the moon except digging to find out details about what had happened between me and Jim. I’d been expecting her to grill me about the reason for our split the second I landed, since she hadn’t delved into it when I’d first contacted her, but she was avoiding that subject like stinky feet.

  It preyed on my mind, though. Would Jim want to see me? Would he be amenable to trying to get back together again? While it was true that he’d been in the wrong when he’d cheated on me, the intervening years had opened my eyes to some of my own faults. Like the fact that I hadn’t believed him when he’d claimed it had only happened once, despite all the evidence pointing toward his words being the truth. Or how I hadn’t given him the benefit
of the doubt when he’d promised it would never happen again. Then there was the fact that I hadn’t thought twice about ending the best thing that had ever happened to me after one single—albeit devastating—bad decision. And I couldn’t ignore the fact that I’d indirectly deprived a good man of a relationship with his son, and my son of a relationship with his father, all because of one single mistake.

  A huge mistake, yes.

  But it was just one. And no one was perfect—certainly not me—so it wasn’t fair of me to expect perfection from Jim. That hadn’t stopped me from expecting it, or from being furious when he’d proven himself to be human. The least I could have done at the time was agree to talk it out with him, or to go to counseling. To see if we could have found a way to work through it. But I hadn’t given him—us—a chance. There was no excusing what he’d done, but in recent years I’d started to think about all the what ifs. What if I’d stayed?

  All of this kept racing through my head as Laura nattered on and drove us to the arena. The effect of it all combined with the wine she’d given me left me nauseated.

  “I might have made a mistake,” I interrupted her.

  She stopped talking and kept her eyes on the road ahead of us. I turned in my seat to see her more fully. She had the look of a woman weighing her words.

  “You want to go to the hotel first?” she finally asked me, although it was clear from her tone that she hadn’t missed my meaning.

  I shook my head. “I think I should just go home. Pretend I never came out here. Forget I ever saw Jim’s profile on that stupid website.”

  “But you did see it, and you came. I understand being nervous, but why not let this play out and see what will come of it?”

  My tears were back, and this time I was fully aware of them. I blinked against the sting, trying to keep the silly things at bay. No use. They spilled over my cheeks, surely ruining my makeup.

  “Now don’t go getting yourself all worked up until you know if there’s a good reason for it. Here,” she said, rummaging in the console between us. She took out a tissue pack and handed it to me. “I’m all for having a good cry sometimes, but you’ve got to get the timing right. This isn’t it.”

  “Thank you,” I said through my sniffles. I took out a tissue and dried my eyes. Then I flipped down the sun visor. There was a mirror on the back, thank goodness. Apparently I hadn’t completely destroyed my makeup.

  Yet.

  The arena loomed large to the right, and Laura turned that direction. Before I had completely fixed the damage I’d caused to my makeup, she was being waved into the parking garage by the attendant.

  “If you’re going to puke, please wait until you’re out of my car.”

  “Trying,” I forced out. “You don’t think there’s any chance Jim won’t be around tonight, do you? Maybe he’s sick? Or what if he decided to travel early to go check out the World Juniors or something?”

  “Keep dreaming, hon. He’s going to be here. Rachel made sure of it. And everything’s going to be fine. I’m sure of it.”

  By the time she’d found a spot to park, I’d reined my nerves in enough to put on a brave face, despite the anxiety doing a tap dance in my belly. She opened the back and took out the bottle of wine. When I came around to join her, she thrust it in my hands.

  “For courage. Drink some more. It’ll help.”

  I’d never been much of a drinker, but now seemed as good a time as any to follow her advice. I took a long swallow before tucking it beside my luggage and nodding that I was ready.

  She took me by the elbow and guided me into the building. Almost a dozen women and their kids turned with excited smiles when we walked into the owner’s box on the suite level. They swarmed over to embrace me, each of them drawing me in for a hug and gushing about how perfect it all was and what a great surprise my arrival would be for Jim. Completely numb, other than the buzz from drinking my wine too fast, I could do nothing more than smile and nod as they welcomed me.

  Until a young girl with Down syndrome put both arms around my waist and hugged me tighter than anyone but Dillon had ever done before. She took my breath away with her sweetness, both literally and figuratively. When she finally let go, she held up a sprig of mistletoe with a red bow tied around it and handed it to me.

  “This is for you and Mr. Jim. I told Mom you needed it because it would help. It worked for Q and Miss Mia. They told me all about it.”

  “Well, thank you…” I fingered the bow, debating whether I should hold on to it or toss it and run as fast as I could back to Minnesota. Because, while I’d forgiven Jim for everything he’d done, I wasn’t sure he was ready to forgive himself. Or me. How could he forgive me for taking his son out of his life? That was at least as egregious as the fact that he’d cheated. I wasn’t going to make excuses for him, but I couldn’t make excuses for myself, either.

  But I couldn’t run. I’d already argued about what I was doing with Dillon enough. The last thing I needed was to disappear before I’d seen it through.

  * * *

  Jim

  “A problem? What kind of problem?” I barked into my phone, already racing toward the elevators on the press-box level at the Moda Center before Rachel could answer.

  “Just get down here quick,” she said. Then she hung up the phone, not giving me the chance to get any more information out of her. Or any information at all, actually.

  The game was as good as over, and going well, thanks in no small part to Hammer’s steadying presence on the back end. Medved had gone off early in the first period, limping like he’d pulled his groin again, so we’d only had five D out there for the majority of the game. But none of them had panicked. Burnzie and Hammer kept their cool, and that rubbed off on 501, Harry, and Demidov. It didn’t matter who’d gone out there without his regular partner; they’d just gotten the job done. And even though it had been a low-scoring game, we’d gotten two quick goals in the second period—only twelve seconds apart—and Nicky Ericsson was working on his third shutout of the season.

  There were only five minutes left in the third, but anything could happen in that time. Our two goals were proof enough of that. Rachel knew how fast things could change in this game as well as anyone. She wouldn’t have called me away from watching the boys unless there was a damned good reason for it.

  Maybe someone was hurt. Or somehow someone got past security and was in there with the guys’ wives and kids when they shouldn’t have been. I didn’t know what was going on, but it was definitely something, not to mention important. Which explained why I was out of breath and more than halfway to full panic by the time I rushed through the doors of the owner’s box.

  Then I couldn’t breathe for an entirely different reason.

  Instead of chaos greeting me, it was Elaine.

  My ex-wife.

  The woman who still owned my heart, even all these years later.

  The woman whose heart I’d broken in a moment of youthful weakness and utter stupidity.

  It had been nearly twenty years since I’d last laid eyes on her. I’d talked to her over the phone in that time, making sure she and Dillon had everything they needed, getting reports about him once he’d become a teenager and refused to have anything to do with me, but phone calls weren’t the same as seeing her in the flesh.

  Her hair was still blond, her eyes a beautiful moss green. She had on a sweater that matched her eyes and looked as soft as silk. The last time I’d seen her in the flesh, she’d had the most perfect, flawless skin. It still glowed today, but there were a few wrinkles around her eyes and mouth. Not anywhere near as many as I had, and somehow they only made her more beautiful to me.

  My arms ached to hold her.

  But Elaine wasn’t mine, and she hadn’t been for a long time. She never would be again. I’d lost her and my self-respect in a single act. I’d been working to regain my opinion of myself ever since, but I knew better than to think I could ever win my wife back.

  Some hurts dig t
oo deep. Some scars never fade.

  “Hi,” she said, sounding as breathless as I felt. Her voice had changed. It was a bit lower than I remembered. Rougher around the edges. Sexy as all hell.

  I nodded, my tongue too thick to respond to her, and forced my mind back to figuring out what Rachel had called me down here for. I spotted my assistant’s bright red hair in the crowd and gave her a questioning look, since I couldn’t make my mouth work.

  “Merry Christmas, Jim,” Rachel said. She waved her arm toward Elaine, as if that was enough explanation.

  And it hit me.

  This was what she’d been up to with Laura Weber and the other wives last week.

  This was the surprise.

  Not this—Elaine.

  I didn’t know how they’d managed to get her here. Couldn’t fathom what they might have told her to convince her to come. All I knew was it would backfire. Go up in flames.

  Because I’d cheated on her.

  There wasn’t anything I could do to change the past.

  There wasn’t a damned thing I could do to be worthy of Elaine’s understanding, and without that, there was no point in them bringing her here.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, first to Rachel and the other wives. But then I met Elaine’s eyes and held her gaze. “I’m so sorry,” I said again.

  She shook her head, and a soft look came into her eyes.

  It wasn’t enough. It would never be enough, but it was all I had. It was the only thing I could give her. Then I spun around and headed out of there before I made a fool of myself, begging her for the forgiveness I would never deserve.